Rinse and Repeat 3: The best laid plans
by Chameleon2
Summary: After Berlin, the task force is more or less destroyed. However, Berlin keeps quiet, and life continues…and so does Reddingston's list. There's always another criminal to catch. This one forces Ressler to go undercover, with the rest of the team for backup. Only Ressler was never narco, and sending someone that dedicated undercover might not be a very good idea.
1. Chapter 1

After Berlin, the task force is more or less destroyed. However, Berlin keeps quiet, and life continues…and so does Reddingston's list. There's always another criminal to catch. This one forces Ressler to go undercover, with the rest of the team for backup.

Lizzie distrusts Red, but accepts him as one of the good guys. As this is still the Rinse and Repeat 'verse, she and Ressler are not having a relationship…except that they do, sometimes.

So, we've had Ressler hurt and feverish, we've had him angsty and drunk, we've had sex and hurt/comfort. Now what's missing….ahh, _high_. Let's see what we can do with that, shall we? And if I can manage, I'll add some violence, misery and mental anguish.

Let's see if I can't make this a proper blacklist case.

RINSE AND REPEAT 3: The Best Made Deals

PROLOGUE

Berlin had left the taskforce, called affectionately the Post office by those belonging to it, shell shocked and adrift…for a time. For the three months following Berlin's violent knock on Reddington's door, all remaining agents walked around with a wild look in their eyes, jumping at shadows, paranoid and constantly afraid.

Lizzie Keen spent hours thinking about changing her last name, taking Sam's again…but her hatred of the man whose name she now carried seemed insignificant compared to the horror she had unwittingly caused her colleagues and everyone she knew. She kept her name and changed address every couple of weeks. During the nights, she dreamed of Tom and Meera Malik, and about fire and bullets ripping apart flesh.

Berlin kept quiet. For weeks, they expected him to show himself in an explosion of terror and flames, but the earth seemed to have swallowed him.

Donald Ressler woke and got up the day after Harold Cooper had regained consciousness, left his apartment and found himself unable to continue halfway his early morning running workout, convinced he was being followed and suddenly terrified to end up in the dewy grass with a slit throat. He wasn't the kind of man who was afraid of the unseen; he didn't have the imagination to spook himself, but standing there, alone in the park, feet frozen to the concrete and fear beating in his throat, he felt so vulnerable and exposed he might as well be five years old and completely helpless. Nothing happened, but he stopped running—for another week.

Meera Malik was buried six days after she was murdered. Harold Cooper was unable to attend, but Aram, Lizzie and Ressler were at her funeral, which was dignified and beautiful, and terrible. A great many people had turned up to share stories of their relationship with Meera, telling Lizzie more about her colleague than she'd ever knew or, indeed, wanted to know. It was so much more horrible to lose a close friend than to lose a colleague you liked, and by the end of the many, many speeches, she felt as if she'd been cheated out of a best friend, instead of a fellow agent. Meera's daughter sang to her mother for the last time in a painfully high, clear soprano, but broke down on the last refrain and had to be led back to her chair by her father. The grief of the widower and two young children crashed over the assembled crowd like a wave: a young, beloved mother who couldn't be missed. Lizzie and Aram stayed behind for the informal gathering afterwards, but Ressler fled, eyes downcast and miserable, haunted by the fact that she'd been killed with him only a couple of yards away, and that he hadn't been able to protect her. The evening following her funeral he went running again, almost hoping he'd be targeted, but all he got was sore muscles. When he got back, he found Lizzie waiting in her car in front of his door. "I want to feel alive," she said. He let her in without another word.

Reddington, like Berlin, had disappeared, but unlike Berlin, did get in touch once every couple of weeks. He was tracing leads, he said, and taking care of things, everything vague and unclear. Lizzie wasn't certain how she felt about him now. She was glad he was still alive, and free, and not being tortured, but sometimes she felt bitter about his blithe waltzing in and out of her life, as if he hadn't torn it to shreds and left her with a handful of pieces. But even the bitterness settled and for the first time in several months, Lizzie found herself able to relax, alone at home, and when he sent her the most outrageous bunch of roses on her birthday, she placed them in a vase and sat staring at them, smiling, for several minutes.

And so, slowly, life righted itself as life was wont to do. The taskforce was reinstated, files were updated, and the search for Berlin continued. Berlin remained stubbornly hidden.

Cooper returned to the Post office, first for a few hours each week, looking old and bent and with a voice sounding like tyres on a pebble beach, but then a few hours each day, and finally full time again. Four weeks after his reinstitution, Reddington sent Lizzie the name of a terrorist and they spent five days hunting the man down. Other cases presented themselves, keeping them unexpectedly busy.

Meera's position remained vacant. There were a few rounds of applications, but because Cooper was disinclined to spend his valuable time interviewing applicants after turning down two agents, no one was added to the team.

Lizzie and Ressler were fine with it. Replacing Malik so soon seemed callous, even though Cooper warned them that he needed more active agents than just the two of them. They realized, somewhat surprised, that it had been three months since she'd been killed and they'd almost lost their boss, and went to Ressler's bar to drink to her memory. And then they ended up in bed again, as was almost tradition by now. Neither of them was exactly comfortable with the morning after, but the awkwardness at work was gone. Ressler had pegged down their relationship as 'co-workers slash sex friends', which he never, ever voiced aloud because he didn't think he'd be able to pronounce the word 'sex friends' without a Japanese accent, and didn't want Liz to know he was aware of the existence of such movies. Lizzie, admittedly after several glasses of bourbon, had them classified as 'no strings attached fuck buddies'. It was odd, she thought, to semi-regularly sleep with a man she liked but had no romantic feelings about, but after the past one and a half year, after _killing Tom_, common morality didn't feel applicable to her.

Another problem was her paranoia. She'd been betrayed so many times it was hard to start trusting people again. She discussed it with Ressler, during one of those rare post-coital moments they shared without either of them being drunk or in a hurry to leave this depraved scene of intimacy.

She'd asked him "How do I know if I can trust you?" and was somewhat surprised by his answer.

"Why would you want to trust me?"

"Because there isn't anyone else anymore."

Ressler had smiled self-deprecatingly. "Then you'd better start looking for someone else fast. Look, no offence, but I'm not really the kind of person you want to rely on."

Lizzie had frowned. If anyone was reliable, it was Ressler. Neither Audrey nor Meera Malik's death had been his fault, and not even his responsibility, no matter how he saw it. And she did trust him, always had, she supposed.

Somehow, he had read her mind and scowled. "Don't go trusting me because I told you you couldn't. I don't use reverse psychology."

Despite herself she'd laughed. "You know, Ressler, you manage to surprise me every time."

"Every time?"

"Every time I think I have you pegged down. You're not…you don't…you're not who I think you are."

He'd shrugged. "I'm a very simple man, with very simple needs. Last year, I wanted to bring Reddington down. Then I found out that there are even more despicable people and that he can help me bring _them_ down. So, at the moment, I'm forced to work with him. Fine. When the time comes, I still want to be the one to clap him in irons and toss away the key."

Lizzie hadn't been certain she agreed with him. Neither, she'd thought, was Ressler himself. Red had saved his life twice, and Ressler wasn't past working with Reddington if the situation demanded it. She'd said so: "But you make use of him."

"It'd be stupid not to. Berlin is out there. Reddington's here, or at least reachable; he's not going away, his status isn't going to be revoked any time soon, and he has resources no one else has. I try to see him as an asset."

"An ASSET! Reddington?" She'd laughed, then sighed. "I trust him as well, you know. But only that he doesn't want to hurt me. That he wants what best for me in the end. But I don't know why, and he won't tell me."

"Then don't trust him, or trust him as far as you yourself are concerned."

"And what about you?" She'd turned to look up at him. "What are your intentions as far as I am concerned?"

He'd looked studiously blank. "I don't have any, really."

"None?"

"No. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying this…" he'd shrugged the shoulder she was lying on and tightened his grip on her hip, indicating her, and the bed, and the fact that they were both naked beneath the sheet, "but it's not leading anywhere. Is it?" he'd asked, suddenly anxious.

She had done some soul-searching. Nope, she still didn't love him and while she liked having sex with him, she was in no hurry to take whatever it was they had any further.

"No."

"Well then. No intentions. That's not to say I don't want to keep you safe. That's a bit of a prerequisite to continue doing this."

"What if I find someone new?"

"Then we stop having sex."

Now that was somewhat disappointing, somehow. Males should display a certain degree of possessiveness, in her opinion, if only to make their mates feel appreciated. But that was the whole crux now, wasn't it? They weren't mates, they weren't even friends, and they actually took pains to appear the opposite.

_Why can't it be less complicated? It would be so much easier if I did love Ressler._ Fat chance there. At that moment she hadn't even liked him. At all. Trust him, yes, like him, no. Much like half a year ago. Some things remained the same even if everything else changed.

One evening she went out on a date with a cute young lawyer she'd befriended at the gym and who'd asked her out with an honest to god rose in a cellophane wrap, but while she had a pleasant time, she was unable to relax and take anything the poor man said at face value. Ressler was completely supportive of her dating another man, encouraging her to do it more often, but after spending the next morning obsessively digging up Jordan Mavy's personal records, she concluded she wasn't ready for another relationship. Three days later she found herself sleeping soundly next to Ressler, who hadn't ever been able to create as much as a single butterfly—not even a caterpillar, really—in her stomach, might not be funny or charming (unless he was drunk or hung-over, when she thought he was hilarious), but dependable, trustworthy and really good in the sack, and decided that she and Ressler were both a bit fucked up after everything that had happened.

Berlin remained elusive. One time, Reddington sent the Post office information about his possible whereabouts, but the trail was cold by the time they arrived in Russia. And then Reddington began showing his face in person again, leading several operations unrelated to Berlin himself. Once, Lizzie asked him whether he thought that Berlin might be her father, mistakenly thinking she'd been cut into small pieces and sent to him bit by bit. "Your father is dead," he repeated. "Please believe me that you are better off not knowing who he was, but trust me, he is dead."

Slowly, the name Berlin began to drop down their hit list. He was never gone, but other names bumped themselves up, more urgent threats reared their ugly heads.

They disposed of several of the names on the Blacklist.

Lizzie was clipped in the arm by a criminal named Cavalles. Ressler shot him down twenty-four hours later.

Life, in all its strange, horrific, boring, insane normalcy, continued. Reddington still had his Blacklist and his reasons for keeping it, and Lizzie still had to find out who he was to her. She was wary of him the way she'd been when she'd just met him, but she no longer hated him. After all, he had given himself up for her. If there was one thing he had proved to her, it was that he wanted to protect her, even if that meant she would hate him for it. But she no longer hated him. The status quo had re-established itself.

1.

Donald Ressler was an orderly man. He liked his life to be ordered, and took pleasure in carrying out his routines to keep both himself and his house well-maintained and orderly as well. It started with his hair. He was what doting mothers and fiancées would call 'strawberry blonde', what artistic people liked to label 'pale ginger', and what he himself thought of as a nondescript 'fair' but had to admit was really 'reddish'. As long as he kept it short and gelled back, it covered his scalp like a dark blondish, copper-in-the-sunlight cap; once he let it grow longer than two inch, it became lighter and redder and had a tendency to curl, which he hated. His facial hair, if he let it grow, which he only did when he was sick or on holiday, and then only because Audrey had liked it, was a shade darker with a few dozen startlingly bright red hairs in it. To maintain order, Ressler had his hair mowed short every four weeks, and shaved his jaws every day.

His morning routine was strict, if not outrageous: he got up at six-fifteen, thought about Audrey, checked his second freezer, put on running clothes, drank a cup of coffee, went running for half an hour, returned home and had breakfast, shaved and brushed his teeth in the shower, donned his suit and went to the Post office. If he didn't have time for breakfast, he'd pick it up on his way to work; he took another road to the Post office every day and rolled a dice to select one of the eight different routes he'd mapped out after Berlin. Every route featured at least one bakery, and he sometimes cheated a little if he felt like a particular kind of sandwich only available at Elliot's Plaza or Claire's Bakery. The dice he used was a d8, an eight-sided dice, and he'd had it (and several other strangely-shaped dice) since he was twelve and had tried his hand at Roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun and Cyberspace. It hadn't been a great success; somehow, he'd been entirely unable to see himself as a Paladin dwarf with a magical sword and his teenaged friends as grungy elves or natural born killers. But he still had the dice, and they now helped him run his routines.

It was therefore with a slight sense of misgivings that he read the ominously polite and prosy text message on his phone that appeared just as he arrived, pleasantly winded, back at his apartment at 7.00 sharp in the morning.

_Good morning, Agent Ressler._

_I may have need of you within the following three days. It concerns a short period of undercover infiltration. In preparation of this possible job, could you find it in you to not shave and not visit any hairdresser's? I promise you this state of unkemptness will not last if it turns out to be unnecessary. Meet me at 11 Neville rd. I have already notified Harold._

_R._

"What now?" Ressler sighed. But he went through the rest of his morning routine and skipped shaving, which made him feel strangely unfinished and, indeed, a little unkempt. It wasn't very noticeable; his beard didn't grow that fast, but the rasp of stubble was annoying. He didn't think he'd ever faced his colleagues any way but clean-shaven—well, apart from Liz Keen, that was, whom he'd faced stark naked and with a hangover. To his chagrin, as he opened his car door, the monthly notification in his phone popped up to tell him that today he was due for another mowing session.

_I'm obviously beginning to become too dependable in my actions, _he thought. He wondered how Reddington found out about these kinds of things. Did he hire people to spy on Ressler as he'd done with Keen, or did he see it as a form of leisure, or practice, perhaps, following Ressler around himself and making neat little notes on the ways he spent his time? He couldn't imagine Reddington caring enough about him to waste his own valuable time, so the brutal truth was most likely that he'd been followed by a boy on a skateboard or a young mother with a pram. For at least a month, no, make that two, if he knew about the haircut.

Painful.

He took a detour to Neville Road, if only to give skateboard-boy or pram-lady a solid workout. The road itself was long and winding, featuring several enormous houses spread thin over properties so large they made him sigh with envy. Number eleven was near the end of the road, stand-alone, and clearly not Reddington's, if he had to believe the plaque on the door.

The older man answered the door himself; Dembe must be out liquidating people, or having the car washed, or some sort of business.

"Ah, Agent Ressler!" Reddington said, ushering him inside and smiling as if seeing him this early in the morning came as a pleasant surprise to him. "How good of you to come so quickly. Come in, don't mind the mess." There was no mess to speak of, apart from an empty bottle of wine on the hideously expensive-looking kitchen table, two glasses, one sporting lipstick, a fat manila envelope and an empty coffee cup. Reddington himself looked remarkably fresh-faced and immaculate in a crisp white dress shirt and dark blue pants. Not having people after him howling for his blood must agree with him. He offered Ressler coffee, but he declined.

"Let me see—ah, you didn't shave. Very good. Hmm." He appraised Ressler's hair. "Bit short, but it'll do. Tell me, how long does it take for you to grow a beard?"

"I have no clue," Ressler said. "But I can manage the Don Johnson-look in another two days or so." Reddington smirked. "Why this fascination with my facial growth?"

"I need you to be someone else for a while."

"Undercover job?"

"Yes. We'll have the official briefing with the others at the office, later." He picked up the envelope, opened it, shook out its contents and handed them to Ressler. In it was a thick stack of pictures and what looked like an extensive personal file. "This," he continued, as Ressler looked at the pictures one by one, "is Aaron Stone."

Ressler frowned. "The name seems familiar."

"It was also the title of a kids' TV series," Reddington deadpanned, "2008, 2009, if I recall correctly." Ressler ignored him. He very much doubted the name sounded familiar because of a show he had never heard of. "But I can guarantee that no one will connect the two." Reddington continued. "This Aaron Stone is a renowned drug trafficker from Washington." He gestured at the pictures and Ressler flipped through them, determining that Stone was a tall, hard-faced, well-built Caucasian male with a short beard, messy reddish-blonde hair and a penchant for Ray-Ban sunglasses.

"And you want me to be him. Is he dead?" _In other words, is this going to bite me on the ass mid-mission when the real thing shows up and proves me a fraud?_

Reddington seemed to hear his unspoken thoughts and laughed, but it wasn't the chuckle he used when truly amused but the slightly too loud laugh that meant he was actually very serious. "Agent Ressler, Aaron Stone doesn't _exist_. I created him six years ago. And so yes, he's very much alive. Unfortunately, the man in the pictures, whose real name is Neil Mandellion, and who has been playing Aaron Stone whenever he needed to make a physical appearance, died in a car accident in Albany last Friday."

"Ah."

"Yes. Considering the fact that I needed him to meet his contact in two days, you can imagine I'm somewhat put out by his unexpected demise."

Ressler studied a close-up of Aaron Stone, or rather Neil Mandellion's face. It wasn't exactly like looking into a mirror, but they did answer to the same description, even up to the dimple in their chins.

"So I immediately thought of you," Reddington continued brightly. "You've got the right accent, the correct age, a similar build; big strapping lad, iron exterior, deep voice, all the works. Someone who never met Aaron Stone would believe you were him without a second thought."

"And why couldn't you tell me this at the Post office?" Ressler asked, smelling a rat.

"Because Aaron Stone is a sampler, and playing his part would mean you'd need to get up close and personal not only with Davey Boscoe, who is Stone's contact in Baltimore, but also with various substances Harold Cooper probably doesn't want his personnel exposed to."

Ressler snorted. "You want me to pretend I'm one of your drug dealer flunkies, and you expect this will not blow up in our faces?"

"I don't have anyone else." Ressler found that very hard to believe. "No one available at such short notice," Reddington amended, noticing his expression. "I know quite a lot of tall blondes, but none of them resemble Aaron as closely as you do. I can postpone the meeting with Boscoe for another day, maybe two—that is, you can, if you call him and take the job, but if Aaron doesn't show up in the next couple of days, the deal's off and I won't be able to catch the man behind all this."

"And who would that be?" Ressler asked. "Another one of your Blacklist entries?"

Reddington nodded. He walked to the cooking isle and placed what Ressler identified as a percolator on the gas stove. "There's no coffee like freshly-ground percolated coffee, Donald. Don't let anyone ever convince you otherwise. Nowadays, people simply don't take the time to enjoy making their favourite beverage. An Italian grandmother dies every time people spoon instant into their mugs."

Ressler patiently waited until he'd finished bemoaning the death of perfect coffee. By now he had learned not to push Reddington when he was having one of his seemingly random flights of fancy.

"The man behind all this?" he repeated, when the percolator was puttering. "Does he have a name?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't need Aaron Stone to find out," Reddington said. "All I know, all anyone knows, is his nickname, which is 'Blofeld'."

_Blofeld. Wait…_Ressler huffed. "Are you kidding me?"

Reddington smirked. "I see you know your James Bond."

"Does he have a white cat?"

"No, but he does seem to aspire world domination."

"And he is dangerous…why?"

"Because despite the nickname, Blofeld is a highly unsavoury character who has signed his name on far too many operations that have crossed mine."

"I thought you said drugs wasn't your cup of tea."

"It isn't. Hence my desire to sabotage this shipment, catch and unmask Blofeld and stop him for once and for all."

"And what kind of profit will 'Blofeld's' capture yield to you, huh? His hidden book with names and addresses? That will enable you to find out the passwords to some Pentagon file hidden away in an obscure databank somewhere? If it'll help you find Berlin, you know we'll do everything we can to help."

Red smiled, only the lower half of his canines showing. "Some people just need to be stopped because knowingly leaving them alive and free to prey on humanity is too much of a sin to live with. Trust me, you don't want this man to continue his business. I have sent proof to Harold—Aram's probably turned it into a lovely little PowerPoint by now. What I need to know, is whether you're in or not."

Ressler nodded slowly. There was only one real problem with Reddington's plan. "You said Aaron Stone is a sampler. You do realise that I've never used drugs in my entire life? I mean, I've never even smoked pot. Or maybe once, I can't even remember. I don't smoke at all—don't they all smoke?"

"You'll be fine. I can educate you. And you don't actually need to use it, well, not much, anyway, not if it all goes well…"

"Because these kinds of schemes have always worked out so great in the past."

"Fatalism doesn't suit you, Donald."

"I'd like to think of it more as realism." He was silent for a while, the cogs in his head turning their slow but steady way. He wasn't thrilled with the whole plan, but more because undercover jobs pulled him out of his comfort zone. He was very good at processing data, following leads and being intimidating, but not so good at playing at being someone else. Especially when it was connected to cocaine. Then again, if he could really dive into it…It might work. He felt a little tingle of excitement. Unfortunately, Ressler's face was not made to convey excitement clearly, and Reddington needled, "Agent Ressler, I hate to say it, but we have no one else. I'm not going to let myself in with yet another FBI group; one gaggle of groupies is enough for me."

Ressler did not rise to either the 'gaggle' or the 'groupies'. "I'm just not very good at pretending."

"I know. Your acting capabilities are sorely lacking. However, with a good sniff of cocaine inside of you, you should perform admirably."

"I really don't think…" Ressler back-paddled, but Reddington interrupted him.

"You don't fail, do you, Donald? Isn't that what you said? You never fail anymore?"

"Shut up." He sat down at the kitchen table, Aaron Stone's file in front of him, considering. Reddington waited patiently and poured two cups of coffee. "Ok. First of all, what kind of illegal substances are we talking about?"

"Cocaine," Reddington said immediately. "And XTC. Meth, probably. Heroin. Perhaps some marihuana. But coke, XTC and meth are most likely."

"I'm not shooting up."

"You won't have to. They'll only expect you to test the coke and the ice. Maybe do some bonding over XTC. Most dealers don't actually do heroin."

Ressler snorted. _Breaking news: FBI hotshot turns Meth head for dubious undercover job for world-renowned criminal_. "I can't say I'm looking forward to doing meth. It causes nerve damage and long-lasting behavioural changes if the methamphetamine is contaminated with the reagents or solvents—what? I keep up to date with the stuff the kids are using out there."

Reddington pushed one of the coffee cups towards him. "Thankfully, Blofeld is famous for his clean crystals—and even more for his cocaine. You wouldn't need to use much, just test it."

Ressler sat for a couple of seconds, rubbing his knees. He absentmindedly took a sip of coffee. It was very good, much better than the local Star Bucks clone's. "I would have to test it. I have no clue what makes drugs good quality or bad. I'm not narco, and I never wanted to be. Sure, I know that if coke smells like washing power it's probably cut badly, and that methamphetamines can be snorted, smoked and shot—I passed all my narcotics tests, but that's about it."

"I have the fullest confidence in you," Reddington said calmly.

Of course he did.

"Fine. But I need to try it out, in a safe environment, before I snort down a handful of coke in front of a bunch of addicts and totally lose my…and mess up."

"Certainly," Reddington said immediately. "I'll provide you with some…try-out material, so you can practice."

He felt another flutter of excitement, the kind he'd also felt when he'd decided that he would either get answers or leave a suspect strangled to death in the interview room. But it wouldn't do to let Reddington know that he was beginning to look forward to his little mission.

"Will you also make sure Cooper won't take my tox screen next month? I'd hate to lose my job over testing positive on a wide variety of illegal substances."

"Your job will be safe, don't worry."

"What about dealer etiquette? If I go there and do a faithful impression of Jesse Pinkman, I doubt anyone's fooled."

"I'll educate you on that as well. Or Squeeze will. I'll introduce you to her. Meet me at eight, this evening."

"Where?"

"Here. I'll get you your safe environment, and everything else you'll need to become Aaron Stone."

"Tonight?"

"We only have a couple more days until Boscoe chooses their dealer in Baltimore, and gives him the date and place of the next shipment. We need to know when and where that's going to be, so yes, tonight." He drank his own coffee, smiling in bliss. "Get yourself familiar with Aaron Stone's life. Read his bio, it's very extensive and will give you all the information you need. Also check the memory stick in the envelop; you'll find it useful I'm sure."

Ressler picked up one of the pictures and held it up. "He has a sleeve."

"Yes. Several other tattoos as well, in fact. That reminds me to call Cindy. She can work miracles with henna-based semi-permanent inks."

"Great," said Ressler. He checked, but to his immense relief Stone didn't seem to have any piercings or other things that were hard or impossible to fake. He flipped ad random through the many pages of the file, reading little bits and pieces of it while Reddington finished his coffee. "Wait a minute. It says here that Aaron Stone rides a Harley."

"Yes. Will that be a problem?"

Ressler grinned. _2007 DYNA FXDSE CVO DYNAGLIDE SE_. _Screaming Eagle cylinder block (1800 CC)._ Sweet. "I don't think so."

About an hour later, Reddington explained everything again to the team, a little more detailed in some parts while glossing over some other. Cooper was apprehensive, but Reddington made a great case for the need of Blofeld's removal by listing an impressive and somewhat frightening number of deaths directly traceable to operations led by Number 13.

"And what's in it for you?" Cooper asked, because he was no idiot either.

Red smiled winningly. "Satisfaction that the weaker people in these surroundings will have to work just a little bit harder to get their fix, and perhaps have time to wean off of it. And revenge for being thwarted just a couple of times too many."

"I thought the Blacklist wasn't about revenge, it being so short-lived," Ressler said. He was a bit worried by how easily Reddington had glossed over the part of Aaron Stone being a sampler as well as a dealer, and how plausible he'd still made Ressler's role without it. He felt weirdly nervous about taking drugs, especially meth. The Ressler household had discouraged any substances but alcohol (that is, his mother would have loved to discourage alcohol as well, but then she'd have had to divorce her husband), and apart from a couple of drags from a joint, he found he'd never needed anything but booze to relax when going out. He guessed he'd always simply been too chicken to risk a bad trip—a feeling not all his colleagues had shared. Friends at the DEA were always easy access points to all sorts of drugs, and he knew for certain that Sam from his old Reddington hunting taskforce had liberated several grams of cocaine from the vault of his local office for personal and recreational use. Hell, he understood, and it wasn't as if he blamed or judged them. It was just not something he'd ever considered doing himself.

Yet at the same time, there was that thrill of risk, a bit like hitting 120 mph on a country road and knowing that crashing, while unlikely, was definitely an option. _I've never driven a Dynaglide, just that old Softail…_

He jerked to attention when Reddington started to outline the plan. It was deceptively easy; most of the groundwork, i.e. establishing Aaron Stone as a trustworthy contact, had already been done. All Ressler needed to do now was introduce himself, make friends with David 'Davey' Boscoe, convince him Stone would make a good distributor who didn't cut when told not to, stood up to the right people and bowed down to the right people, and so find out when the shipment would arrive. That, Reddington stressed, was the main goal of the operation. Finding out Blofeld's real identity was part of the operation, but not obligatory, as Reddington was convinced that the shipment itself would hold valuable clues on where to look for the man.

"Won't they smell you're FBI a mile away?" Keen asked some time later, leaning against the door jamb and watching him from the door opening. "Or will you start cutting yourself again to prove them you're reliable?"

"I'll change to Axe Supermeth," Ressler replied absentmindedly. Despite himself, he was impressed with the completeness of Aaron Stone's character. Relatively normal childhood, girlfriends, rivals, parents remaining (an ailing father, whom he had not abandoned even as a drug trafficker, and who still regularly called him—making him a perfect head-of-mission line), contacts in several cities. Parts of the bio were written by Reddington, other entries were obviously made by Mandellion, fleshing out his character as he played it. Even more useful was a memory stick with several hours worth of movies and sound fragments of Aaron Stone talking, walking, sitting; listening, rapt, attentive, bored, angry, every mood conceivable.

Keen spoke to him again, but he ignored her, and after a while she went away, leaving him to his homework.

There was a lot of it, but once Ressler's interest in something was piqued, he could absorb information very quickly. That was the way he worked best, and it had been something he hadn't been able to do for quite some time. Reddington, his great obsession, was off-limits, perhaps forever, but this here, becoming someone else, was right in front of him and posed a challenge that was…well, challenging at last. He sat with his eyes glued to the screen of his computer, headphones on, and watched 'Aaron Stone' being interviewed by a dark-skinned lady. It was clear that the woman knew him as Mandellion, but after a few laughs, they both fell into character. The man's shift from himself into Stone was interesting. All he changed was his stance and his tone—voice a bit lower, speech just a hint slower with a hint of a drawl, head tilted to the right when asking questions, a curve of amusement to the mouth whenever he was listening, as if everything was below him. It was fascinating, really. He wondered if he could do the same thing. Somehow, he thought that he could.

Just as Red prepared to leave the Post office, Cooper put a hand on his arm.

"A word with you, Reddington. If you please."

It was difficult to tell with the man's ruined voice, but Red thought the 'if you please' sounded more like 'and right now', but he said, "Certainly," and followed Harold up to his little cubicle at the top of the stairs. The blinds were down already, which made him wonder what dear old Harold was up to when he was alone in here. Nothing interesting, most likely. Work. But it amused him to picture a stack of Playboys in the bottom drawer of Cooper's desk. "What can I do for you?"

Cooper sat down behind his desk and gestured for Reddington to do the same. Red smiled and kept standing, noting and ignoring the twitch of annoyance on the other man's face.

"I need to know what you're up to."

Red raised an eyebrow. "I just gave a briefing of 45 minutes. If you…"

"Cut the crap. I have neither the time nor the energy to play your games." It was odd how a close brush with death seemed to erase some men's basic sense of manners, Red reflected mournfully. "I don't need to remind you that, although the position of this task force is a little more secure after arresting Nigel Pederson last month and finding those two girls still alive, we're still dangerously close to being shut down. Your immunity is always at risk. So tell me why we're really getting involved to bring this Blofeld," his nose wrinkled in distaste, "to justice."

"It is ingenious, isn't it," Red marvelled, "that name. Come up with a nickname so cliché that no one wants to pronounce it for fear of embarrassing themselves, and you're got the perfect cover."

"A bit too perfect," Cooper reflected. "We haven't been able to find as much as a hint of him anywhere."

"Well, that's why you've got me, isn't it? If you could have found him by yourself, he wouldn't be on my list. I bumped him up, too, can you believe it? He used to be at fifteen and now he's at thirteen—he passed Alyosha Yaroslavovich, and let me tell you, Alyosha has been at thirteen for a very long time."

"Reddington."

Red sighed. "The reason why I need to bring Blofeld in is because I don't know what he's up to. Now, there are a great many people whose plans and whereabouts are unknown to me, but they won't cost me any sleep. Not knowing what tricks Blofeld has up his sleeve, that troubles my sleep." He returned Cooper's somewhat worried look with a reassuring one of his own. "It's not like Berlin. I know about Blofeld and his business. I know I've never crossed him personally. But he's been silent for too long, and trust me, that does not bode well."

"Do you think he might be working with Berlin?"

"I honestly have no idea, Harold. That's why I need Ressler to lure him out, or at least deliver us the next…shipment."

Cooper, already on the next topic, didn't notice his slight hesitation. "Why Ressler?"

"As I already told Agent Ressler himself, I don't have anyone else with the same qualities available at such short notice. Do you doubt his capabilities?"

"I don't doubt his capacity as an FBI agent. I'm less convinced it's a good idea to send him out there and subtly worm his way into the Baltimore underground."

"Because of his lack of experience in undercover operations? I agree that subtlety is not Agent Ressler's forte, but we don't need subtle; we need someone who is perfectionist or dogged enough to quickly and successfully adopt a completely different character, smart enough to think on his feet, and trained to say the right things to make the right people trust him." He laughed. "You can say a lot about Agent Ressler, but he is very dedicated to whatever it is he is trying to pursue, as I know from personal experience."

Cooper pursed his lips, unwilling to discuss his own agents with an individual like Reddington, and Red was curiously satisfied when he spoke up after all. "The last time he went on a mission with you he almost got killed."

"Harold, we've _all_ almost been killed, the past few months, including you and myself. And you make it sound as if I personally send your agents out on missions, while you are their boss, not me. Besides, I doubt he remembers; it's more than half a year ago." He twirled his hat in his hands. "No. You're not afraid he'll be injured, it's something else. Perhaps you'd care to tell me?" He raised his hands when Cooper scowled at him. "I can't help you nor Ressler if you won't tell me what's the problem, Harold." As far as he could tell, Harold was the only one who saw a problem. Ressler had acted normally. He wondered if that meant the problem was more or less serious.

"Let's just say that some people are…not entirely happy with the way Agent Ressler is behaving ever since you turned yourself in."

"Whatever could you be implying?" Red asked innocently.

"We know he came to you after Audrey Bidwell was killed," Cooper stated. "And that you provided him with the information that led to an unwarranted attack on an illegal hospital, the death of Robert Jonica and the disappearance of Mako Tanida." Red permitted himself a tiny smile. _Would he still have that box? _"When I was injured, he used excessive force to extract information from a suspect and ignored any commands to report in and stand down," Cooper continued, frowning, "Combined with an inordinate number of headshots when non-lethal force would have sufficed…Like your King-maker. There was an inquiry, and I can tell you that it was touch and go or he'd not have been here anymore."

"You're saying Ressler's off the rails?" Now that was an interesting development, and not one Red had foreseen—or even detected himself. Ressler seemed his usual, boring, straight self to him.

"No. Not yet, in any case. But I don't like exposing him to…" He gestured. "Not when his psych report is so influential in the rest of his career."

Reddington considered. "Are you afraid he'll go rogue?"

"He doesn't have any reason to do so. But with every new incident, his reactions become more extreme. You might want to think about that when you send him out there. Do you really want a man like Ressler become someone else and then infiltrate a gang of drug dealers led by, as you say yourself, one of the few people who keep you from sleeping soundly?"

"That may not be an ideal option, no," Red murmured, not showing how pleased he was with this information. He'd been somewhat anxious that Ressler would balk at some of the tasks, as of yet unspecified, required of him; this suggested he wouldn't. And if this all did go to hell, and Ressler was thrown out of the FBI…well, Red would have use for him. "It's nice to see you care so much about your personnel."

Cooper scowled. "Of course I care about my agents. They're good men and women, and I've already lost too many."

"But, unfortunately," Red sighed, "we have no one else."

So engrossed was Ressler in his new material that he almost missed his appointment at 11 Neville road. He arrived a few minutes past eight still chewing the last bites of a sandwich grabbed hastily on the way. Somehow, he thought snorting coke would be a bad idea on an empty stomach. _Because it's such a great idea otherwise._

Just before he could ring the bell, Reddington opened the door—again—and let him in with the most amicable smile. Red himself was dressed for the theatre: a tailor-made suit, tie, white scarf even, shiny shoes.

"Going out?" Ressler asked with a hint of suspicion. It wasn't really Reddington's style, but he wasn't convinced the other man wouldn't set him up if he had decided that Ressler would be of more use in prison than in the Post Office.

"Yes. I thought you'd probably feel more relaxed if I wasn't there to watch your every high-as-a-kite move." True, Ressler supposed. He was still apprehensive.

Red laughed. "Oh come on, Donald, would I do anything as stupid as call the police and complain about addicts in my kitchen? What would that gain me, apart from an annoying investigation of my current habitat, which isn't mine, as you undoubtedly fathomed?" He patted Ressler's shoulder. "Trust me, this is purely for your own peace of mind. Unless, of course, you'd rather have me stay? I can cancel my engagement for this evening. I'd hate to leave the lady hanging and miss a reputedly stellar performance of La Traviata, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make if you insist."

Ressler sighed inwardly. No, he definitely didn't want Reddington in the same room when he tested out the various substances. But he trusted the other man as far as he could throw him, and who knew what he was up to? Red grinned, sensing his inner turmoil, then took pity on him.

"Relax. You're safe here. Let me introduce you to Squeeze and Cindy. Cindy will be doing your tattoos. I thought it would be a good idea to combine that and the drug test-outs; it will save time and they know one another already. Oh, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention my name. It would mean nothing to them, and might endanger them." He opened the door, led Ressler past the kitchen and into the outrageously sprawling living room, where two women got up from a cream white leather couch.

"This is Squeeze." Dry, firm handshake, a beautiful, hard face with a scar over one eyebrow, small of stature but somehow large of presence, sallow skin, grey teeth when she spoke. As Reddington introduced him as Aaron, she looked him in the eyes for three seconds, a very straight, measuring glance, before her eyes started roving the room again.

"And this is Cindy." Ressler noticed that while Cindy's shoulder got a friendly brush of the hand, Reddington made sure not to touch Squeeze. Cindy was large, blonde and pretty, and sported a variety of tattoos on her arms. A thorny rose in bloom climbed its way up her neck. Her gaze was guileless, open, and her smile very white.

Both women had a suitcase with them. After Reddington had bid them good evening and told them to take good care of Aaron, which made Ressler scowl, Cindy giggle and Squeeze regard Ressler with a hooded expression he didn't much care about, they both opened their suitcases like salesmen at the marketplace.

Cindy's was black and sported a drawing of a panther and a dragon fighting in a storm of rose petals, and held about fifteen jac bottles, a similar number of henna cones, pencils, markers, stencils and an assortment of oils and other things.

Squeeze's was plain brown leather, and held about fifteen small bags and plastic cylinders filled with pills and powders. Ressler couldn't help smirking.

"I wouldn't know where to start," he said.

Cindy turned to Squeeze, "Have you got something that'll make him sit really still?"

Squeeze shot the both of them a sharp smile. "Not really. Most of it will make you…active. But go ahead, your stuff will need time to set, right? I can show him some things, first, before we get to the actual sampling." She regarded him with cool eyes while Cindy told him to take off his shirt, no, the one beneath as well, silly, how can I paint on your back while you're wearing clothes?

_Well, _Ressler thought wryly, _this proves to become interesting, with these two lovely ladies and their products and me half naked not five minutes after getting to know them._

Cindy had taken a couple of A4 photographs out of her case—Aaron Stone's sleeve, front and back views, Ressler noticed. Another picture was of some Chinese or Japanese symbol that Aaron had tattooed on one of his kidneys. Ressler wished he knew what it said, hopefully not 'kidney'—he really had to look that up in case someone asked. Cindy was rummaging in her papers when she asked, "Now, do you know, by any chance, whether you're allergic to PPD?"

"What's PPD?"

"It's a synthetic dye, I always forget what it stands for…"

"p-Phenylenediamine," Squeeze said, sounding bored.

"Yeah, right, p-Phenylendiada…whatever. It makes henna dye, which I'm going to be using on you, stand out longer and look darker. I can get it pretty dark with some extra inks, dark enough for this tattoo, but it'll last longer and look more crisp. But it can cause a pretty severe reaction if you're allergic, so…"

"I'm not really familiar with henna tattoos," Ressler said dryly. "What happens when I'm allergic?"

"It might give you short-term hives. Or cancer. Or it might cause scarring…I'll just leave it out, ok, and use some extra ink and glue. Ah, here they are, I was afraid I'd forgot them." She pulled out several stencils with the tattoo line art on it and began coating his upper arm with water. Taking special care to place the pattern on correctly, she then applied the stencils to his arm. "Don't mind me," she said, waving her hands. "I'll just do my thing here and tell you when I need you to sit still." She fished an iPod out of her pocket, put on in-ear headphones and began to sort her supplies.

"Good," Squeeze immediately took over, ignoring the other girl so pointedly it was as if she'd gone up in smoke. "I understand you're completely inexperienced when it comes to hard drugs."

Something in Ressler wanted to protest, but the fact was that he was, at least to exposure to it.

"I can tell you how it's made and what it does to you, but…yeah."

Again the knife-like smile. "Time to change that, then. You'll like it, I can promise you. I only hope you're strong enough not to like it too much. Meth's a harsh mistress, very clingy, and very hard to abandon once you've started dating her. It'd be a shame if that pretty mouth of yours became a wreck of ruin."

Ressler's eyebrows crawled up of their own accord. _Pretty mouth? Really?_ "Personal experience?" he asked, and she smiled, showing her grey teeth.

"Can't you tell?"

"You don't look like…"

"I'm not. Not anymore. Hatman got me out, pulled me away from the needle and put me on top of the plunger. Still sour about the teeth, though." She unclipped a small plastic bag from the inside of her suitcase. "We're going to start with coke."

"We?" _Hatman?_

"Yes. I'm taking you through it step by step." The grin again, there and gone so fast it was nothing more than a flash. "Don't worry, we're not taking much. Just a little. And I'm going to show you how you take it, and what slang is hot at the moment." She put the sealed bag on the table and took out a regular brick of coke. "Just a question. This is not cocaine, by the way. It's flour, and you can tell by its dull colour. Coke is a salt, so it forms tiny crystals—sorry, I can see you know all that. Say, someone gives this to you and tells you to take a sample. How do you do that?"

She gave Ressler the package. It was well-wrapped in cellophane and tape. "Cut it open."

"Where? And how?"

"Here." He indicated the centre of the broad side of the brick. "Just a small slit."

She grinned. "Your dealer ain't going to be pleased with you, brother. What's he going to do with that leaking package? He doesn't want to leave a trail like a modern Hansel and Gretel. No, what you do is this: you find a piece of tape that's loose, like here, pull it back an inch, make your cut beneath it, take your sample and hand it back so he can seal it back off with the spare bit of tape. Don't do it yourself, you're too busy snorting. What do you use to get a sample?"

"My key. Or I could rub some of it into my gums, but that's more to identify it, I guess."

She nodded, satisfied. "Just the tip of it. You can also use your knife, but be careful not to nick yourself; you'll look like a complete idiot. Better to shake a bit onto your hand and snort it from you thumb. Sometimes, they have a line laid out for you. If so, let them provide the straw, you can't be expected to have one in your pocket all the time. And if I were you, I wouldn't be snorting monster lines, not even if they offer. Right, let me see you take it."

"One moment, hon," Cindy said, as Ressler picked up the small bag, "Just gonna take my stencil off of you…ah, that looks perfect! Give me a sign when you're done, ok, so I can start on your arm."

_This is so surreal_, Ressler thought with a shake of his head. He opened the bag, dipped the point of the key to his front door inside and sniffed. The flash he'd been expecting didn't happen; all he noticed was that his nose and palate grew numb.

Squeeze nodded at him–_you've done well, my padawan_—used a cut straw to fish out a bit of coke and snorted it with well-practiced ease. Ressler made a mental note of the little movement she made with her head. "Ok," she said, "Lean back, let Cindy get started on your tattoo. It'll start working in a couple of minutes. How long's it last?"

"'Bout half an hour."

"Yup. Now, you're probably going to want to move, but we're not going to, because we're going to do speed, too, and you'll definitely want to go running when we're doing that."

"I'm good."

"Good." She paused as Cindy, singing, 'Oho here she comes, watch out boy, she'll chew you up!" under her breath began to trace the lines on his arm with one of her little bottles, grinned and said, "Relax! You're tight as a bowstring and you're not even tight yet. Here, have some water. Ok, now for some non-TV slang, what to say, and what not to say."

She gave him a list of synonyms for cocaine, most of which he was familiar with, and told him which ones were in use at the moment. Then she explained how coke deals usually went down, and what he could expect to be expected to snort down, swallow or smoke either to establish quality or to seal the deal.

"I don't smoke."

"For real? God, but you're innocent."

Ressler barked a laugh. "Not really."

"Untainted, then. No dope, no smokes—you do drink, don't you, or…?"

"Yes."

"Thank goodness; at least I'm not your sole source of bodily corruption. But be careful when you're using and drinking at the same time, which you'll probably end up doing, because that always happens. With coke it's not so bad, because the effects are over really quickly, but when you're using meth, it'll take a lot longer, up to eight hours. You won't feel the alcohol, but you'll be drunk all the same, and the blackouts are nasty."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I doubt it, but consider yourself warned anyway."

"How do you know all these things? Do you deal yourself, or…"

Her face hardened. "Don't ask. I don't want to know who you are, and I don't want to tell you who I am."

Ressler raised his hands, palm out, making Cindy cry out and snatch his arm back. "Sorry, I don't mean to pry. I'm just…I mean, you're this tiny woman and you sound like the…" He bit down on his tongue before he finished: _jaded_ _narco guy who tutored this course I did on narcotics at the FBI_.

But Squeeze had relaxed already and showed her flashy little smile again. "It's ok. I understand why you'd be curious. I must confess I'm a bit curious about you too. You're not like the guys Hatman usually pushes my way."

"Hatman?" Ressler couldn't help asking.

"Honey, if you tense your arm like that, I can't paint the inside of your elbow," Cindy complained. He relaxed his arm. The tip of her bottle tickled. "Thanks."

Squeeze shrugged. "I don't know his name. He usually wears a hat, don't he? So I call him Hatman, and he seems to like it. How are you feeling?"

"Good." Better than good, in fact. He was alert and very much awake, as if he could talk and rehearse all night and then start reading up on Aaron Stone again first thing in the morning.

"Thought so. Let's go through some scenarios, shall we? And then we'll take a break and have a beer, and then I'm introducing you to meth." She grinned. Widely. "You'll love that. we just have to make sure Cindy'll be finished with your sleeve by then, because I doubt you'll be able to sit still for very long."


	2. Chapter 2

The cocaine high lasted about 30 minutes, and while he liked the feeling of alertness and energy, Ressler was relieved to find out he wasn't craving a new dose as soon as the first one had stopped working. He didn't sag down in exhaustion or feel noticeably more tired when the sparkle of energy faded; he just felt more grounded. It was nice, but it wasn't magical, and that, more than his rising dopamine levels, convinced him he'd be totally fine.

"Sure, you don't feel it as strongly as some do," Squeeze shrugged, when he told her he was a bit disappointed by the lack of pink-haired unicorn-feeling. "Others embrace it and don't want to let go of it. This was good coke, by the way. About 85% pure. If it's cut badly, the high is more jarring, possibly more intense. Gives you a headache. Now, I'm gonna give you a break before we start on the ice, because your brain's going to have to work hard enough producing everything the drugs use up. I don't think I'll make you do XTC tonight; it wouldn't be responsible."

"If you say so."

"I do." She poked Cindy in the arm. "How far along are you? Almost done?"

The other girl laughed. She pulled her earphones from her ears. "Eh, no. Still got his lower arm, and his back, and his neck to do. That'll go way faster, though; it's just symbols and tribals." She picked up a small drop-shaped bottle and squirted something over his henna-ed arm that smelled strongly of lemons.

"So, how much longer do you need?"

"Well jeez, I don't know. Another hour? One and a half? Why don't you just carry on. I'll work as fast as I can, but I can't be rushed. Artists never can, according to Kat." She smiled smugly; Squeeze rolled her eyes.

"Why don't you go ahead and say it, Cindy?" and to Ressler, "She used to work with Kat von D."

"Who is Kat von D?" Ressler asked.

Cindy stared at him. "You don't know who…L.A. Ink? The show? She's only the queen of tattoos!?"

"Ah. And you worked for her?"

"Yes," Cindy said proudly. "Never on the show, though, but I worked at her studio." She nodded at her suitcase. "Specialized on dragons and panthers. Oh, and Pinups." She smiled roguishly. "Are you sure you don't want a little pinup on your shoulder blade? I could freehand this cute little redhead in hotpants…"

"Keep to the assignment, Canvas," Squeeze said, before Ressler could even begin to find words that were not downright rude. "We don't have all night. Or do we?" she asked. "You got things to do tomorrow needing you to look like a diplomat instead of a zombie? Theoretically speaking, of course; you'll probably be just fine."

"I don't think so," Ressler said. All he needed to do was further his knowledge on Aaron Stone, and he could do that at home.

Squeeze nodded. "Good. Still, I got places to be tomorrow so…let's have another beer, and after that we're doing ice, just a little, of course, and maybe you'll be just be invigorated." She grinned. "If not, well, we'll see."

It was ten o' clock when Ressler snorted down a thin line of crushed amphetamine crystals.

"50% cut, with caffeine," Squeeze informed him. She sat across of him on her couch, drumming her fingers incessantly on the table in front of her. "It's like a super cup of coffee." Her eyes had widened, the pupils dilated. Ressler had no idea what he looked like himself, but he guessed he must be much the same. He remained in his seat, talking a hundred miles a minute until eleven, and then he shook Cindy from his arm and ran around the house a couple of times.

Christ, but speed was great. If he hadn't seen what it did to people and how much it fucked them up, he wouldn't mind making this a habit. Even more than the coke it made him feel superbly awake and alert, both mentally and physically, and when he plunked down back on his seat after running what had have been about a mile, he wasn't even breathing hard.

"I like this," he confessed to Squeeze, who grinned and regarded him from her sprawl on the sofa.

"I thought you would. Feeling pretty great, aren't you?"

"I would feel great too," Cindy said, a little sourly, "if you'd relax a little so I can finish your arm and start on your back."

"Go ahead."

She positioned his arm and started applying some red ink. "Jeez. Your skin's like ice, didn't you put on a jacket or something? It's really cold outside."

"Is it? I hadn't noticed."

She grumbled something about 'fickin' weird customers and their unsavoury habits', which made Ressler laugh, which made Squeeze laugh, which finally made Cindy giggle as well. "Dear lord, I really hope you won't end up rolling over the floor laughing. That'd seriously mess up my drawings."

"I don't usually rofl," Resser smirked.

"Most people don't, usually," Squeeze said. "But the more serious in ordinary life, the more abandoned high."

"Abandoned, huh? Well, I was sitting here half-naked within a couple of minutes after meeting you. I still wouldn't ever describe myself as 'abandoned'."

Squeeze winked at him. "Wait till you come down. Do you have a girlfriend? Wife? Boyfriend?"

"No?"

She smiled. "Well, like you said, you're half naked, surrounded by two pretty hot girls, and you're doing meth for the first time. I'll warn you when you start pitching a tent."

"Oh, that's smooth." Not that he was really worried. It was strange, but despite the fact that he'd never met them before, he trusted both women completely, felt wholly at ease around them, and absolutely safe. Sex with either of them was not an option, but if Squeeze wanted to tease him she was welcome to try.

"Smooth's my middle name," she said. "Squeeze Smooth Lamprey. That's me."

"_Lamprey_? Like the fish? Eel? Whatever they are?"

"Yup."

"You named yourself after an eel that sucks blood?"

"Some of them do. They're vampiric fish—ain't that cool?"

"It would be, if I hadn't had one attached to my chest one day, when I was seven."

"Weren't that a leech? Lampreys don't usually attack humans."

"No, definitely a lamprey. It was about a foot long."

"That's disgusting," Cindy interrupted. She sprinkled more lemon juice onto his arm and then started to wrap it up in bandages. "I'm done."

Ressler looked at the result and gave a low whistle. "That's actually pretty amazing." He watched as a rising phoenix surrounded by curling clouds and swirling birds of prey disappeared beneath white cotton. The whole thing covered him from shoulder to wrist, and if he hadn't known it wasn't the real thing, he wouldn't have been able to tell.

"Thanks," she said, beaming.

"Did you do the other…I mean…Aaron, did you do his tats too?"

Cindy nodded. "Yup. Several times. His were fake, too, you know—apart from the one on his back. That one was real."

Yes, the Japanese symbol on his kidney. "Do you know what it means?"

"Nope. Probably 'love', or something. Or 'honesty', that one's pretty popular, too."

"Great," Ressler muttered. "I have honest kidneys."

Squeeze guffawed at that. Cindy smiled, tied off the bandage and gave him a small tube of cream. "Take off the bandage tomorrow morning and rub this into it every evening. Or morning. Every day. It'll keep the colours bright. It'll keep under the shower, but you shouldn't scrub at it, so be careful when you're towelling off."

"Ok."

"Great! Then I'll get started on the tattoo on the back of your neck. Lean forward. I should have this done in about ten minutes."

Tue to her word, Cindy finished with the last tattoo half an hour later, gathered all her bottles and inks and waved a cheerful goodbye.

"So, what now?" Squeeze asked, once she was gone. "It's almost twelve. Is there anything else you want to know?"

"I don't think so."

"Think you can manage on the streets?" He nodded. "Self-assured son of a bitch, ain't you?" She flashed her knife-smile. "How're you feeling?"

"Good. Bit edgy." I got up, put on his shirt. "I think I'll go and have another run outside."

"I'll come along, if you don't mind," the woman said.

"Knock yourself out. Just mind I don't have a key."

"Psah," Squeeze scoffed. "Keys. You need a key to open a door? Pussy."

"_Pussy_?"

Laughing, she danced out in front of him, opened the door and stuck out her pierced tongue. "Come and catch me, blondie. If you can keep up with me I'll teach you how to open a lock with a hairpin."

"Right, cause that's something I'll always have on me, obviously," he returned, rolling his eyes, and as he followed her out he made damn certain the door didn't fall into the lock behind him.

Ressler left Squeeze and 11 Neville Road at two, ready to crash an hour or so later, and get up bright and early to study Stone's file some more.

He never made it to his bed.

Seven to eight hours was how long a meth rush usually lasted, so Ressler was both happy and somewhat appalled to find that at eight in the morning he was still running high. Happy, because he was going through Aaron Stone's file as if it was a children's book, memorizing facts and faces as easily as if he'd all seen it a hundred times before. Appalled, because even though he felt great, drugs not running their course the way they were supposed to made him a little nervous. They also made him sweat and, as Squeeze had promised and he found out while looking at pictures of Aaron Stone's various girlfriends, played havoc with his libido. As there was no one around to impress, he ignored it and did fifty push-ups instead.

He ran another couple of miles, hoping to burn through the boundless energy that made his muscles sing, but no, he was still hopped up, and now completely soaked in sweat. Just as he threw his shirt into the laundry bin on his way to the shower, his phone emitted a modest chime. It was from Cooper, and he stared at it disbelievingly.

_Agent Ressler, meeting 9.00 am, AD Cooper's office, Post Office. I have some additional information for you._

"Fuck!" He checked his watch—well, he still had 45 minutes to shower and drive up to the Post Office, but he wasn't looking forward to facing Cooper while still riding the edges of a speed run.

"Fuck!" he said again, when he checked himself in the mirror and started at his pasty-faced, wild-eyed reflection, complete with garish sleeve and unshaved jowls. "Well hello, Aaron Stone. You aren't looking so hot, man."

He half expected his reflection to give him the finger, but Aaron Stone obediently mimicked his every move, like any other mirror image. It was strange, though. Ressler had seen himself in various states, including happy, despairing, angry, sick and drunk, but never quite like this, and he felt a hint of estrangement as he studied the mirror.

_Stop checking yourself out, Snow White. It's nothing a razor and a cold shower can't fix. Well, perhaps not a razor. And I shouldn't wash my arm. Don't want to undo Cindy's hard work, do we?_

With these self-admonitions he stepped into the shower. He kept the temperature as low as he could stand.

Lizzie met Reddington in the park before work.

She found him sitting on a bench in front of a duck pond with half a loaf of bread in his lap. About eight ducks crouched at his feet, their heads expectantly raised, but he was speaking on the phone and ignored them for the time being. Her, he acknowledged with a nod, and patted the space next to him while he concluded his conversation.

"Yes. Yes, I told you I'm working on it. I told you I'd find her, and I'm reasonably sure I have located her. No…Yes of course I'll tell you as soon as I…Calm _down_, my friend. There's nothing to be won by hysterics. Yes, I am sure. I'll contact you—no, I will contact _you_. Yes, as soon as I know more. I promise. You know I will." He pulled the phone away from his ear, tucked it away, sighed and faced her with a smile. "Sorry about that."

"That's ok. Is that," she gestured at the pocket into which he'd put his phone, "related to Blofeld, or…?"

"No. An old friend of mine has reason to suspect a close member of his family has been kidnapped. He called me to ask me help get her back."

"Ah." She smiled, surprised, as he offered her three slices of bread. "Anything we can do to help? At the Office, I mean?"

"Not as of yet," Red said. He threw a piece of crust at a duck, chuckled as another drake snatched it away right in front of the greedy bill. Lizzie followed his example. Soon, they were surrounded by ducks. "This is something I can only do on my own. But if it turns out I need the law on my side you'll be the first to know." He tossed the ducks his last handful of bread, reached into another pocket and held out a slim, pink phone to her.

"What's this?"

"How do you feel about Agent Ressler, Lizzie? Do you think you might make a convincing girlfriend?"

"Wait, what?"

"Can you picture yourself sleeping with him?"

She blinked at him, somewhat alarmed. "No? What is this about?"

He nodded at the cell in her hands. "That phone. It's the phone of one of Aaron Stone's girlfriends. A girl called Nicky Coxx."

She rolled her eyes. "Cocks? Really?"

Red laughed. "Coxx, Lizzie, C-O-X-X. And she may be a feisty girl, but she's no prostitute. Although, of course, you're free to expand on her character if you wish…Oh, you unlock it with an infinity swipe."

"Like so?" She drew an eight on the screen and it lit up to show a picture of a red kitten in a pale cleavage. "Really?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at Red.

He shrugged. "I didn't program the phone, the previous Nicky did. She must've had a hell of a time with it."

Lizzie concurred. She paged through a number of whatsapps and messages—several of which had been sent to 'Aaron'. "She's pretty serious with Aaron, isn't she?"

"She's rather fond of him, yes."

"I gather this is Ressler's line to me, if he needs me?"

"Yes. He will be given a similar phone with a caller history of about three years, and several contact persons. However, any of those contact persons ever actually showing up would be unlikely—apart from a girl. No one, not even the most suspicious drug trafficker, would be surprised if she showed up and demanded attention. Now, I don't say that you'll actually have to play Nicky, but if he isn't able to check in or call us, or if we have something he needs to know, this phone will at least give you the means to contact him."

"Ok." She browsed through the phone's contents, some photos, mainly of the small red cat, but also of people who were probably supposed to be friends—and a couple of her as well. "Why is there a series of selfies of me on this phone?"

Reddington waved a dismissive hand. "We've been personalizing it for you, in case anyone ever felt the need to question whether it's really yours."

"Huh." The history of the phone went back more than thirteen months. It had a playlist with Nicky Coxx' favourite songs, a browser history, email. "This is pretty detailed," she said, impressed despite herself. Without knowing a single thing about Nicky, she was already able to build a solid profile on the basis of her phone alone.

"Yes. Aaron Stone is a complete character, with a social life and an interesting circle of acquaintances. All of those are fleshed out as well as possible, to add to the reality of his existence."

"You said there was another Nicky."

"Yes. But so far, she's only been a voice. We've never needed her to show up. Maybe we still don't, but in case we do…there you go." Opening the briefcase he had resting against his legs, he pulled out an envelope. "Nicky has an apartment in Baltimore. This is the key, and all the information you need about the house, the landlord, etcetera. The place is registered on her name, so once you're forced to make contact with Ressler as Nicky, make sure you go there to keep up appearances." He got up, brushed the last crumbs from his pants and handed her the bag with the last of the bread.

"Where are you going?"

"Europe. But don't worry, I'll be back in a few days. I wouldn't want to miss the action." He gave her a wink and, placing his hat more securely on his head, casually sauntered off. A few of the ducks followed him but fell back when they found out he wasn't carrying any bread.

Lizzie put the phone into her pocket, tore the bread in pieces and fed it to the ducks. Then she climbed to her feet, shooed the birds away, and went on to the Post Office.

Ressler was already in when she entered; she'd noticed his car when she parked her own in the garage. The main den was quiet; the screens just showed the nondescript screensaver icon, apart from one, which ran the News. Aram was either busy in his own cubby hole, or not in yet, and the rest of the personnel was only just filing in.

Casting a glance at Cooper's office she saw the blinds drawn, light filtering through a couple of crooked slits, and his shadow sitting at his desk, talking to someone; he was in, then. The light in her own office was on as well, and Ressler was doing laps around the room when she entered, or at least, that was what he seemed to be doing.

"Hey," she said, and he turned around so fast he almost fell over.

"Hey."

There was something very wrong with him. She couldn't immediately put her finger on it, but the whole picture he made was…wrong.

"Are you ok?"

"How do I look?" He sounded anxious, and that was odd as well.

She cast an appraising look, and the wrongness sprang out in a dozen little things. He was wearing a suit, as always at the Post office, and Ressler generally wore suits well, but now his tie was slightly askew, and the knot at his throat was strangely elongated. His collar was crooked—because he'd skipped one button, she noticed. The face above the collar was tight and pale and his eyes were disturbingly black, staring out from shadowed sockets. A thin sheen of sweat stood out on his forehead. His hair was stiffly combed back as usual, but it was as if he'd used the wrong end of a comb, and it was not quite as neat as she was used to. He'd had the stubble since yesterday, but it was more visible now.

"Um…Like hell? Did you see a ghost? You're white as a sheet. Are you…?"

"Fuck!" he said, and hit himself in the face with both hands so hard the slap echoed around the room.

"Whoa, whoa, stop it!" she dove forward and grabbed his hands before he could do it again. "Christ, Ressler, hitting yourself a black eye isn't going to help your complexion."

"It'll bring back some colour," he said, and it had, only the colour was vivid red, hand-shaped and wholly unnatural.

She stifled a giggle. "Yes, but I don't think this is the look you want to go for. Are you here to see Cooper?"

"Yeah. He's busy at the moment."

"I noticed. That's good. You need to wait for a bit until you're…um…appear a bit more normal." He twitched; if it hadn't been Ressler, she'd have said he was jittering. "So what's happened to you, then, huh?"

"Nothing. Reddington. Stuff." He pulled at his hands, but she was still holding his wrists and wouldn't release them.

"If this weren't you," she said slowly, peering up at his face, "and if it weren't Tuesday, and if you weren't here, I'd almost say you were high."

"Well," he whispered, bending down so his mouth was level with her ear, "if it weren't Tuesday, and if we weren't here, I'd almost say you were fucking right."

She reeled back, releasing him. "You're _high_?" _NOoo! Ressler, high? I mean, I would believe drunk, I've SEEN drunk, but HIGH?_

He grabbed hold of her shoulders. "Ssh! How should I know?" he bit back. "I've never done this before! I do shots, not lines, I was a fucking illegal substance virgin before yesterday!"

"What the hell are you…You know, never mind, it can wait. It's not important right now. Do you really need to see Cooper _now_?"

"Yes. He called me in. He's got something for me."

_Ah. That would be that phone Red mentioned. _"Then you'd better calm down. Have some coffee."

"If I get any more keyed up, I'm going to bounce off the walls," Ressler said.

_I would SO love to see that._

He combed his hands through his hair, making it stand up, and causing her to notice something else. She vaguely gestured at his crotch. "Ressler, you really need to _calm down_, or do something about…that." Funny how she wouldn't have been able to notice this and make such a remark as much as half a year ago. She'd have been too embarrassed. Now, the ugly truth was that she was so familiar with him she even—be it very, very briefly—considered telling him to go and jerk off in the bathroom.

"I can't help it!" he moaned. "My whole body's fucked up. It was supposed to wear off ages ago." She filed that away as the first time a male had ever made that kind of comment about that impressive an erection.

"Well, you'd better do something about it; you can't meet with Cooper with a hard-on."

"I was hoping seeing Cooper would make it go away," he said morosely, and the mental image that evoked made her chuckle aloud. "It's not funny!" he hissed, and although she did think the whole situation was hilarious, she agreed something had to be done.

"Ok," she said, showing her hands like she would to a skittish horse. "Let me straighten you out."

"Right _here_?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not that way. Hold still." She began with the buttons of his shirt, undoing them and doing them up straight. Then she took a closer look at his tie and noticed he'd knotted it twice, which explained the abnormally long knot. She remedied that easily. Throughout these administrations, through which Ressler stood stock still, only twitching a little when she touched his skin, she made sure not to get too close to him. Not that she was afraid he'd pounce on her in the middle of the office, but she could imagine him to be acutely uncomfortable with any physical contact. The last thing she tried to tuck into place was his hair, but whatever it was he'd used to lock it in place had already hardened, and it was like trying to comb marble.

"Are you done?" He stepped back from her.

"Yes. But you should go dunk your head in the sink."

"Why?"

"Because I could still take your fingerprints from your face." She brightened. "Maybe you could pretend you have a cold, that'd explain your appearance."

"You think so?"

"Yes, absolutely." _It's a strange kind of flu, sir. Causes erections and handprint-shaped bruises on the cheeks. _She looked at Cooper's little office. The blinds were still closed, indicating he was busy with other things for the time being. "Go on. If he comes out before you come back, I'll tell him you weren't feeling well. Go on, splash some water on your face."

He twitched with indecision and finally nodded jerkily. "Right. Thanks, Keen."

"Sure," she grinned. "Anytime."

By the time Cooper opened his blinds and let out a serious-looking black-haired young woman, Ressler felt a little more in control. He winced internally when Cooper waved him in and remarked, "You look tired. Are you alright?"

But saved it with an off-hand, "Yeah. Long night. Too much coffee," while he sat down in the chair opposite of the Assistant Director's desk. He kept his eyes cast down a bit, hoping that would hide his still overblown pupils. Thankfully, sheer nerves had killed his sex drive, something that made him very grateful. Things were awkward enough as they were. "Was that another applicant?" he asked, clamping down on his desire to ask a hundred questions. Cooper nodded. "Promising?"

"Perhaps."

_Right. "_You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes. I am to give you," the wrinkle of disgust in his forehead told Ressler that his boss was not very happy with the orders he had received, "this phone. It's Aaron Stone's."

Ressler accepted it. It was an iPhone, about a year old. "Reddington gave you this?"

"Yes. In it, is a list of contacts."

"And some of those connect me with either you, Liz, or someone else."

"Precisely. Stone has his father on speed dial. 1. That will connect you to Reddington."

"Reddington?" Ressler asked, surprised.

"Yes." He couldn't determine if it was Cooper's destroyed voice or displeasure that made him grate the word out like that. "He insisted on it."

"I see." He didn't. He'd never had a direct line to Reddington before and he wasn't sure he liked it. Reddington only spoke with Lizzie. That was his own rule, and he hadn't broken it so far. So why did he do so now?"

"You can reach me by calling 'Johnson'."

Ressler unsuccessfully tried to keep back a smile. "Johnson. He's the mechanic for Stone's bike."

"I know," Cooper scowled. "Agent Keen is under 'Nicky'. She's your contact on-site if things go wrong or if we need to reach you and can't do it by phone. In principle, we'll await your report before taking any action. If things go wrong, if they blow up in your face and you need immediate assistance, call Reddington. And the moment you've hung up on him, call _me_."

"Ok."

"Familiarize yourself with the phone and what's on it. Reddington has provided your alias with an extensive history."

"I'm aware of that."

"Do you think you have enough time to make all that information your own?"

_Well, I had most of this night and morning to study it, so…yeah._ He nodded. "I need to meet Boscoe tomorrow night in a club in Baltimore. More than enough time to prepare myself."

"Good. But this afternoon you have one last appointment before you leave." He handed Ressler a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it. "Ms Vivien Mumbay. She'll provide you with the last bits of info you require to become Aaron Stone."

"So she's…what? A contact?"

"A type-caster," Cooper corrected him. "She can tell you whether you've done your homework well enough." He leaned forward, a hint of a smile touching his lips. "Pass her assessment, and you're ready."

"Huh," Ressler snorted. And then he cleared his throat, said, "Yes, sir," and asked permission to leave if there was nothing else.

There wasn't. He got up, and only stopped when Cooper said his name just before he exited the office. "Ressler. Lay off the coffee."


	3. Chapter 3

The address Cooper had given him was downtown, in a small apartment north of the river. Ressler parked the Harley, in his possession for no more than half an hour, on the driveway, giving it a loving little caress, and rang the doorbell at eight, punctual as usual. He was pretty much back to normal, only feeling a bit tired—but that was no surprise after a sleepless night and two busy days. The door opened, and a woman invited him inside.

"I'm Vivien."

Ressler recognized her from one of the interviews. She was tall, almost as tall as him, latte-skinned and boyishly slender, with a face like an artwork; all big, heavily lidded black eyes, generous mouth and wide, subtly curved nose. She had the agelessness a lot of mixed race people had; Ressler couldn't tell whether she was his own age, younger, or much older.

"Don Ressler." They shook hands. Hers was long and narrow, with long, thin, elegant fingers and no-nonsense blunt fingernails. "So you're the Aaron Stone expert."

"Something like that." Her smile was slow and easy. "Come here and let me have a look at you." She made him stand in the middle of the room, took her time studying his face and body, sometimes asking him to stand straight, relax, face up or down. After a while she told him to sit down, sit straight, slouch, straddle the chair, which he did mimicking Mandellion as well as he could. "Not bad," she concluded finally, "Not bad at all." and Ressler wanted to say 'Why, thank you," but he didn't think she was actually commenting on his looks. He wasn't ugly or anything, but neither was he the kind of man girls swooned over, not after quitting football, anyway. He kept quiet and only smiled lopsidedly.

"Ooh, that's nice," Vivian said. "Neil could do that too, that kind of little self-conscious smirk. Keep that in." She giggled. "Don't blush, though. It ruins the effect." She took a step closer and peered closely at his face. "You even have the same skin type—funny, Neil was more ginger than you are. Do you tan or just become one big freckle in the sun?"

"I burn red and then freckle. No tan."

She laughed. "So did Neil." Her face fell, and he asked whether they'd been close. She shrugged. "Not really, but I did work with him occasionally. He was a nice guy, very dedicated. Totally insane, of course, but in a good way." She smiled a little. "Ray tells me you're insane too, but less obviously so. That true?"

Reddington described him as insane? Well, that was a new one. "No. I'm as normal as they come." Apart from the casually shooting people in the leg to get information. And the head in the freezer—which he _**really**_ should get rid of, one of these days. And the strangulation of the suspect in the interview room. And the inability to get a regular girlfriend and lovelessly banging his colleague instead. He cleared his throat. "So, do I pass your assessment?"

"Oh yes, Ray made a good choice. You've pretty much got him down—physically, at least. I'll test you on speech patterns and vocab later, but do you have any questions first? I can imagine it must be daunting to become someone else in such short time."

"Well…" he gestured at the file on the table. "It states that Stone smokes shag. I don't smoke. I can take a drag or two without choking, but I sincerely doubt I'll learn to convincingly inhale within two days."

She shrugged "So don't smoke."

"But Stone…"

"I know Aaron smoked. I helped shape him." She gave him a wide grin, "He's my baby, you might say. And yes, Aaron smoked, but you see, the thing with people is, they change. People change all the time, their looks, their habits, their opinions, for reasons both good and totally random. You must remember that the people you're going to meet expect you to be Aaron. They have no reason to believe he's a fake. They won't have his bio memorized, like you, and they probably don't know him at all. So if you don't completely comply with the way he's written out, who cares? You could shave your head bald, and as long as you have a reason, and really, any reason will do, nobody will doubt you. I mean, I could decide I'm tired of having curls today, straighten my hair and dye it blonde, and no one would care."

"They would notice, though."

"Yes, and then? The most that would happen is someone remarking that I'd done something with my hair. And then I'd say, "Yeah, do you like it?" and that would be it. You could even have done without the stubble. I'm glad you let it grow, because it helps you resemble the pictures, but do you really think your contact will come up to you and say, "Hey man, last thing I heard you had a beard, what's the deal, yo?"?" Her street thug impression was surprisingly convincing, making him smile. She smiled back. "Of course not. Now, things like tattoos and moles are more permanent, and Aaron always flaunted his, so removing those would be a bit more tricky, but everything else…" she fluttered her fingers. "Relatively unimportant, as long as the rest of the picture fits. With you, it does. Besides, Aaron rarely, I mean really rarely interacted with people for more than a few hours. A day, at most. No one really knew him; that was the whole point of him. So even if you do meet someone who had dealings with him, chances are they take one look at your arm and say 'Yup, that's the man I met two years ago.' I like the tattoo, by the way. Was that Cindy?"

"Yes."

"She's a gem. Did she also put them on your back?"

"Yes. I still haven't found out what the one on his kidney means."

Vivien laughed. "It's the Japanese symbol for 'stone'. Neill liked that little bit of irony—his was real, you know."

"Well, I guess you can't say he doesn't make interesting decisions about his personal style." Ressler said. He yawned, jaws cracking. "Sorry."

"Let me offer you some coffee," Vivien said, "like I should have done when you came in, instead of making you twirl around like a mannequin. Sugar? Milk?"

"Just sugar." He followed her to a neat kitchenette, where she proceeded to make him half a gallon of coffee, and then indicated he should sit at the table so she could interview him as Aaron Stone.

"Be him, and then be yourself as him," she said, and after all the clips he'd seen, that wasn't half as hard as he thought it would be. Neill's Stone had a bit of a drawl, a drawn out manner of speaking that sounded both lazy and sometimes threatening or arrogant, and it wasn't hard to copy and maintain. Vivien gave him a few tips on body language—"Aaron slouches. He's always in control, always ready for the unexpected, never impressed. Slouch, relax your hands. Yes, like that. And tilt your head a bit when you speak to people, so you can look down your nose at them. Perfect. Would you like some more coffee? Wait, let me see you eat a donut."

"Does Stone eat donuts in a particular way?" Ressler asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Maybe. Or maybe I just think you need more sugar."

Finally, at eleven, after two donuts and another cup of coffee, she decided she was happy with him and convinced he would be able to pull off impersonating her baby. "You'll do fine," she promised him, as he walked back to his bike and kicked it into gear. "Good luck."

It was only a two and a half hour journey to Baltimore, but Ressler took two breaks because he kept falling asleep on the bike. The second time he splashed water into his face and deliberated taking another shot of coffee, but since he thought that if he pissed in a cup and added sugar he'd already have a perfect espresso, decided against it. His fingers were already quivering with an overdose of caffeine, and when he would finally arrive in another half hour, all he wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for about ten hours. More coffee would only make him restless.

_I've been awake for over 35 hours_, he thought, blinking his burning eyes and trying to keep them open while yawning. _No wonder I'm about to keel over._

The last couple of miles were spent in a haze of endless road lights and darkness, but he finally reached his destination and checked into a little road motel at the very outskirts of the city. No hotels too close to the center, nothing booked in advance. The fewer people knew where he was staying, the fewer people could blow his cover. He parked and locked the Harley, securing it with a chain and padlock, and took in his room. It was rather generous, clean, even had a small seat with a table, two chairs and a desk containing Gideon's Bible, a pen and stationary, and most importantly: a large and freshly-made bed. Ressler threw the duffel bag with clean clothes onto one of the chairs, brushed his teeth and took a minute to rub some of the cream Cindy had given him onto his arm. He was scared to death the tattoo would suddenly just disappear, like a lick-and-paste tattoo from a packet of gum, but as far as he could see it was looking as crisp and vivid as the night before. After making sure the door was locked, he took of his clothes and crawled into bed. He had a very brief feeling of the bed simply sucking him in, and then he was asleep.

He was woken at half past ten by the piercing chirp of Aaron Stone's cell phone, and answered it with a grunt, which saved him from checking the display and greeting the caller by name.

"Wow," Keen's voice said with an audible smile. "You really are eloquent in the morning, aren't you, Aaron? Did you get in late?"

"About three," he replied, rolling over onto his back. He closed his eyes against the caffeine headache beating dully in his temples. "Lots of loose ends tied at the last minute." Gazing at the phone, he noticed that she was calling with her Nicky phone. "Is this my wakeup call?"

"Sort of. I figured 'Nicky' would call you to see if you arrived safely, and to ask why the hell you didn't come to her place. She seems that kind of girl to me."

"Huh."

She laughed. "Am I calling too early for you? Brain not functioning yet?"

"Are you here? In Baltimore, I mean?"

"Yes, just drove in. But don't worry, I won't interrupt. I've got classes to attend. You should be ashamed of yourself, by the way. I'm barely legal."

"Bite me," Ressler muttered, and she laughed again. She did that a lot more often than she used to, laugh. She probably had a full night's rest, then. Unlike him.

"Anyway, I'll let you go back to sleep. Send me a message when you've met with Boscoe."

"I will. It may be late, or rather, early."

"I'll sleep with my phone beneath my pillow," she promised, and broke the connection.

With a glance at the time, Ressler considered getting up; there were still a few errands he had to run, but the headache was pretty bad and he was still feeling woozy with exhaustion. Two more hours, he promised himself, and set the alarm on the phone to bind himself to that promise. Then he rolled over and promptly went back to sleep.

Two and a half hours, a hot shower, more coffee and rather excellent pancakes later, he was feeling much more human and mounted his bike with a cheerfully whistled tune. He left the helmet in the Harley's boot, Aaron Stone only wore a helmet on the freeway, and Ressler was very pleased that he did, because he was sick and tired of the heavy confinement of the bulky thing. The first thing he did was drive up to the nearest gun shop, show Stone's gun license and buy a small caliber pistol. Stone's original weapon was a .44 Magnum, a beast of a thing, and he didn't like wearing it. It was too conspicuous. The .36 Glock was big enough to do some serious damage, but small enough to strap against his ankle and make him at least appear unarmed.

He was cruising around the city, getting a bit of a feel of the place, when his phone first chimed and then rang, and he picked up with a sarcastic, "Well hello, Dad."

Reddington's voice sounded amused. "Did you have a safe journey, Son?" His tone became brisk. "I've sent you some pictures. One is the blueprint of the Lion's Den. It may come in handy. Learn it by heart and then delete it-the file's named Delete anyway. Daddy Stone isn't that digi-savvy."

"What about the other pictures?"

"Flowers," Reddington said brightly. "And one of the apple tree in the yard. Autumn gives such beautiful colours."

Ressler snorted. "Thanks. Should I keep the other pictures or do you think it's safe to delete them too?"

"What would you do with pictures of flowers and trees your dad sent you?"

"If my father were to send me pictures, I can assure you they wouldn't be of vegetation. Not that he sends many pictures, him being dead for over six years."

"Ah."

Ressler was pleased to hear awkwardness in the other man's voice. Good. He should have done his homework. Ressler didn't much lament the death of his father; as far as he was concerned the man he'd called Dad had died several years before his actual demise, but it was a pretty important social factor, wasn't it, whether one's parents were still alive, and after Liz you'd say Reddington would make sure to know who had parental skeletons in the closet and who still had them sitting on the sofa. "I'll check it out," he said, after a few drawn-out seconds. "And I'll call Keen to report later tonight."

He spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Baltimore, sightseeing and cataloguing. The harbour area was bustling, but he couldn't get where he wanted to go by bike, and he thought it a bit too early to go around snooping while he didn't even know what he was looking for. For dinner he found a small restaurant with booths, and studied the map of the Lion's Den, which must be the most clichéd name anyone had ever come up with, while mindlessly shoveling food into his mouth. It was a large, sprawling building, containing seven large rooms on the ground floor, with a total three floors and a basement, which was divided up into three parts. An additional staircase was positioned smack in the center, and he thought that might lead to the roof. Looking at the maps made him feel uncomfortably like Sam Fischer, but that was nonsense. He wasn't after larger than life thugs, and the chances that he'd die in the Lion's Den were incredibly small. Not non-existent, but small. After all, they wanted him to sell things for them. At least, that was the idea.

The other photos were indeed pictures of trees and flowers, and he deleted the whole of it without a second thought. After dinner he drove back to his motel room, checked that everything had been left undisturbed, which was indeed the case, freshened up and donned a black t-shirt that felt unfamiliarly tight around his arms and shoulders, but made him look a hell of a lot more muscled than the loose shirt he'd worn before AND made his tattoo stand out beautifully; called up his inner Aaron Stone and drove off to meet Davey Boscoe at the club.

The club was a little out of town, about fifteen minutes by bike, and reminded him of the Titty Twister. It even had a neon sign flashing in purple-red-pink, but the sign was a stop-motion girl lying on a lion skin complete with snarling head, drinking from a beer bottle, instead of a pair of boobs.

Several motor cycles, not all of them Harleys, were parked near the front door. About fifty cars were spread out over the parking lot, some of them with their headlights lit and people sitting on the hood, talking and drinking. Ressler coasted the Harley to the door and parked it next to a slightly bigger model, got off, secured it and entered the club. And the moment he passed that threshold from the cool October night, into the hot, smoky, noisy club, something clicked neatly in his head. He gave up pretending and became Aaron Stone, leaving any nerves-and Ressler wasn't given to nerves in the first place, except when it had come to Audrey, perhaps-at the door.

Inside, a crowd of a least eighty people stood, slumped and hung against the bar; on chairs, stools and benches. Most were male, but several women were present as well. He saw a lot of young girls, long-legged and showing lots of skin, and older women, some biker gals, macho and feminine at the same time. There was music, but while it was loud enough to force people to talk loudly, no one was dancing, and while one of the girls was subjecting a man to a not entirely unconvincing lap dance, it was clear that this room was a bar only. Sex was probably next door, or in the room after that.

Ressler shouldered his way to the bar and got himself a beer, scanning the clientele with cold, searching eyes. Any of these men could be Davey Boscoe. But instinctively, he knew Boscoe wasn't here. No, this whole meeting was a test. If you gathered a bunch of dealers to make them bid for your deal, Boscoe wouldn't be standing at the door to welcome the potential customers in. Finding him would be a little game of itself.

_It's so infantile. Why is it that thugs with power and bad intentions always have this need to turn everything into an exaggerated kid's game?_ He sighed. Well, fine. It wasn't as if he were here for another reason. He was here with the purpose to play whatever game Boscoe laid out to him, so...better get started.

Taking his bottle, he sauntered away from the bar, deeper into the thronged building. He passed a doorway that had been stripped of its door, and Metal blared through the speakers; a couple of long-haired men and women headbanging along. The music faded out twenty steps further, enabling conversation once more. He cast a glance at five men playing cards around a low table, but negative again: bikers, all beards and jackets and tattoos, but relatively innocent.

He came to a door and opened it, stifling a cough as he walked into the next room. If it had been smoky in the main bar, this room was like a pea soup fog. Or rather, a marihuana fog; the first startled breath he'd taken went straight up to his head and made him woozy. As he waded through the people sitting around or sprawling on the couches and comfy chairs, he tried to breathe through his nose, and never too deeply.

_Perhaps I should have smoked weed, of only in preparation for this._

The music here was quieter-no mad dancing for the stoned-and more random: a country song was followed by Johnny Cash, then one of the slower Nirvana songs. Heads bobbed along and here and there someone sang a few phrases, but on the whole the murmur of conversation drowned out the music. There was also a bar in this room, manned by a handsome young man with carefully tousled hair, a baby-face and a lip piercing. Ressler had to wrestle his way through three girls more or less sprawled over the counter to get himself a fresh bottle of beer. When he paid, he asked, "Boscoe? Where can I find him?" and the bartender thumbed towards one of the two doors towards other rooms. "Outside." He wore smooth silver rings around all his fingers. _How do you handle glasses that way?_ Ressler thought hazily, shook his head and quickly made his way to the exit.

The door didn't lead outside but to yet another big room, with even more people and more smoke. Ressler blinked, his eyes stinging. Even though he'd seen the map, he was still impressed with the sheer size of this place; it was frickin' _huge_. Taking a moment to orient himself he closed his eyes and recalled the map, trying to figure out where exactly he was now. Here, the music, the talking and laughter formed a cacophony that grated on his nerves, and he almost swung his fist when someone bellowed into his ear over the din: "Stone? Aaron Stone?"

He turned, facing the man standing behind him, and identified him as Claus Sacher, his name as German as Ressler's, and who was, in his own neighbourhood, better known as Santa Claus. He was a big man in his early forties, with a sandy beard and long hair tied back in a pony tail. Ressler had read about him in Stone's file. He was a criminal, had spent several years in jail for statutory rape, dealing, possession, assault. His face was red, cheerful and slightly uncertain. Aaron Stone had met Claus once, five years ago, in the beginning of Stone's career.

For one moment Ressler panicked, terrified the man would see through him, but then his anxiety abruptly vanished. Claus had come to him and addressed him by name. Their first and last meeting was a long time ago, and apparently he resembled Claus' memories so much the man had felt comfortable approaching him as a friendly contact.

"Claus!" he greeted, smiling broadly, "Hadn't expected to run into you here."

"Likewise," the big man replied. "Washington getting too hot for you?"

"Too boring," Ressler corrected, taking another sip of beer. Claus had his own bottle, and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. When he took another drag, he plucked away the cig with fingers that flashed several rings, none of them smooth and silver. Ressler was glad Stone didn't wear that kind of excessive jewelry; he'd been annoyed by his engagement ring, let alone a collection like that. "So. Looking for Boscoe as well?" He wasn't all too thrilled to have someone who'd actually met Stone as a contender.

"Yup. I've been here for an hour, trying to find the man. People keep directing me 'outside', but all I keep finding is more rooms."

"Sounds inhospitable."

Claus laughed, the sound deep and rumbling. "Yeah. If the name weren't so big..." He squinted at Ressler's face. "You seem different."

"Had to get some work done," Ressler said calmly. "You remember my Dyna?"

"Yes I do. Don't tell me you wrecked that machine."

"Didn't. Well, didn't mostly. Did wreck my face. It wasn't pretty."

"Never was, Stone, never was," Claus guffawed, making Ressler feel, absurdly, miffed on behalf of Mandellion, who may not have been pretty, exactly, but would have been considered attractive at least.

"Hey," he said, rubbing his jaw, "at least they got my chin back right."

Claus chortled again, finished his smoke and flicked the butt away, drank more beer. "You're a vain motherfucker, man. But your wheels still ride? That's good, that was one sweet bike. That's real good." He sighed and pointed down the room. "Haven't been there yet. I think. Maybe there's a door leading out somewhere. Or a stairway."

_Of course. The stairs. God, I'm slow today._ "I don't think we need to go out. I think we need to go up."

"Up? How so?"

"Because there's nothing out there except drunks and the Baltimore skyline. You think Boscoe's gonna pitch his deal on the parking lot? Nah. I think there's a stairs somewhere, leading up, up and out, or to some kind of roof garden." Claus met his gaze and gave a brief nod. Safety in numbers. Ressler had never thought about trusting his back to a convicted rapist, but still. "Come on."

It took him a while to determine where they were now, and where he should go now, but now he knew what he was looking for, it wasn't long until he and Claus located a narrow hallway leading to a spiraling staircase. At the top was another door. A plaque read 'Outside', making Ressler roll his eyes and snort silently. He tried the handle and a slide in the door opened, revealing two dark eyes.

"Who is it," a smooth man's voice asked.

"Stone, for Boscoe," Ressler said, keeping his tone neutral. It wasn't much of an effort, and for once, he was grateful for the expressionless quality of his voice.

Behind him, Claus bassed, "Santa Claus, for Boscoe as well. Will ya quit this charade and let us inside already?"

"What's the password?"

Claus fulminated; Ressler hid a smile. He patted the big man on the shoulder. "Relax, Claus." And to the eyes behind the door, "Give us a break. There is no password. Open the goddamned door; we're late as it is."

The eyes crinkled with laughter, and the lock slid back. "My apologies," a slender man smiled as he opened the door and let Ressler and Claus in, or more precisely, out into the night air. "It was the 'Santa Claus'. I couldn't help myself." He was short, tan, fine dark hair thinning at his forehead and temples. He was also, Ressler thought, as unlike any dealer he'd ever seen, in his white pants and wide, white tunic-like shirt.

"Are you Davey Boscoe?" he asked, incredulous. The picture on Boscoe's file had been of a white man. Things might get confusing really fast if someone was impersonating Boscoe as well. Thankfully, in his voice it only came out as disinterested.

The small man smiled again. "Oh no, no, I'm not him. I just open the door to 'Outside'." He pointed, and Ressler saw he'd been right about the roof garden: a large terrace, covering the entire building, stretched out in front of him. Most of it was grass, cut as short and neat as a golf course, but further ahead a canopy of trees surrounded what he could only describe as a gazebo. The porter gestured to the small structure. "You'll find Boscoe there. Have a nice evening."

With a grunt, Claus turned away from him and marched up to the men already gathered there. Ressler followed him.

_Well, _Ressler thought dryly._ No one can accuse us of being racist. I'm only missing a Native American and a Mexican. Who'd have thought Blofeld was oriented so racially diverse._ Sprawled in two chairs, and sitting up as he and Claus approached, were three men; one Caucasian, one black, the last one Asian. Chinese, if Ressler was correct; his features were rounder than Japanese's. The white man, a man of average height and more than average breadth, showed slightly crooked teeth in a short black beard as he smiled, and said, "Aah, Stone, I presume. My name is Davey Boscoe. And you must be Santa Claus. Christmas is a bit tardy, this year." He laughed jovially, but as he gestured at them to sit down Ressler noticed the butt of a gun tucked away in his pants. So far, Boscoe had been pretty much below the radar, his rap sheet showing only minor felonies. That didn't mean he wasn't dangerous.

He didn't feel dangerous, though. Not half as much as the African American, who was watching him with dark, mirroring eyes, or the Chinese man, whose face was so blank Ressler felt overly expressive next to him. In one of their drunk Friday night conversations, Keen had told him that she sometimes wanted to slap his face, just to see if it would change his expression. If his face made her want to do that, she'd likely want to go after this man with a clothing iron. Even when he introduced himself, as Xian Shuo, also known as the Black Ghost, his face remained as empty as a fresh piece of paper.

_Blank origami would've been a more apt name_, Ressler thought. The black man said his name was Bani, no other name, and when he spoke his teeth glittered with inserted diamonds. Ressler hadn't ever heard of either Bani or Shuo, but he thought Bani's accent originated from New York, so he could ask Keen to add that to her search.

"We're almost complete," Boscoe said, handing out beer bottles to those who wanted them. Claus did, and so did Bani. Ressler lifted his half-full bottle to indicate he was fine for the moment, and Shuo just shook his head and sat back, studying Ressler's sleeve. Both of his own arms were covered in tattoos, not in garish colours, but in grays and blacks and a few bright red highlights. _Can't do that without PPD_, Ressler figured. _That's the real thing alright_. He felt the absurd urge to cover his sunset phoenix, thought to himself, _but my dick's bigger than his_, and took a swallow of his beer.

"Nice tats."

"Thank you," Shuo said, displaying a smile that didn't change his face at all.

"Where'd you have them done?"

"My sister did them. She has great talents with the needle."

_Ok. What kind of thing was that to say?_ Being dumb, he decided to play it as well. "Oh. Does she only do family, or..."

"Only our clan, yes," Shuo nodded. His voice was soft and precise, and held just a tiny Eastern accent. _Second generation American. Accent cultivated for identity's sake. _He lit a cigarette and stared at Ressler through the furls of smoke. "You wouldn't survive her kind of art."

What was it with this guy and his strange, threatening remarks concerning his sister? He'd known the man for less than a minute and already he was creeping him out. "Maybe she should take up calligraphy," he couldn't help saying. "Much safer, with those little brushes."

Claus, sitting next to him, laughed uproariously, and Bani's lean face relaxed in a grin as well.

"Relax, Ghost," Boscoe said, taking another swig of beer. "We're among friends here."

"We're among _associates_," the Chinese corrected him. He could blow smoke out of both nostrils as once, and it wreathed around his face like dragon's breath. "I, for me, would like to know the purpose of this gathering. Certainly you cannot mean to have us compete against one another for your graces?"

"Not _my_ graces, buddy," Boscoe said airily, and Ressler felt a hint of respect for his blatant disregard of Shuo's demeanor. "The man who's making this happen wants to know which one to select. So yeah, there will be some competing elements. Not much, this isn't a game, after all. But we need to know where you stand, and therefore we're going to wait until the last of our 'associates' arrives, and then I'll tell you what the deal is, exactly. You don't like it, you get back into your car and I'll give you a beer for the road, no hard feelings. But this'll be done the way it'll be done, and being difficult about it ain't gonna change that. Yeah?"

Shuo returned his stare with the same expression as a white radiator. Then he nodded, curtly, and lit another cigarette.

Just then, the porter entered the gazebo, another man following him. Another African American, but unlike the wiry, nervous, glittering Bani, this man was tall and broadly built, soft around the waist but with biceps straining against the sleeves of his shirt. He was perhaps in his fifties and grey showed in his close-cropped hair. On the left side of his face, a thin scar ran from his cheekbone all the way to his ear, which was missing the top of its shell.

"Sorry I'm late," he said in a rumble appropriate to his size. "Kept missing the stairs."

"You're here now," Boscoe said, and offered him a beer and a seat, which the man both took. "Solomon, isn't it?"

The big man nodded. "Solomon White. Pleased to meet you. And who might you other gentlemen be?"

Boscoe introduced them and then leaned back in his chair, regarding him with obvious satisfaction. "Let's get started."


	4. Chapter 4

"First," Boscoe started, "let's give you a taste of what it is you'll be selling." He took a small sealed bag from his pocket, nodded at the white-clad bouncer, who presented him with a flat, tin saucer the size of a pizza plate, and shook a couple of methamphetamine crystals onto the matte dark surface. The crystals were quite large, larger than the ones Squeeze had been carrying. Boscoe crushed them with a knife he pulled from a sheath at his waist, ground them to dust against the grain of the plate and then divided the powder into six even lines. The porter placed a small bowl with cut straws on the table, stepping back just as Boscoe shook the last fragments of meth from his knife. "Gentlemen," he said, then smiled as they all regarded him warily. "I'll go first." He picked up a straw, leaned forward and snorted down the line. A shiver ran through him. "Aaah, God. Like an angel punching you in the face!" He pushed the saucer back to the centre of the table.

Ressler regarded the lines with a mixture of apprehension and eagerness. The dose of meth was slightly higher than what he'd taken the previous time, but not that much. He knew what to expect, and wasn't afraid of it. What did bother him was that he was actually looking forward to it—it wasn't a craving, exactly, but he couldn't say he would take it against his will.

Claus laughed and took the next line, Ressler the third, and he had no clue who went after him, because Boscoe was right, this truly was something different. What Sueeze had fed him had taken about two minutes to work, and it had been as if his blood had been replaced with coolant and his brain upgraded to the latest quad-core Pentium. This stuff hit him like a sledge hammer, literally leaving him reeling in his seat. He could actually feel his eyes tingle as his pupils exploded and blinked as his tear ducts sent out a reactionary flood. Through the haze of tears the world reappeared in almost unbearable detail, crisp and colourful like a still-wet acrylic painting. At the same time, his mouth went dry and his heart sped up; he sat up straight in his chair, dimly aware of the other men doing the same, wishing he could just leave it, jump off the roof and go running again.

"What did I tell you?" Boscoe grinned. "This is the good shit, huh? Now, with this holy substance running through your veins, let me tell you what the deal is, exactly. As you know, in a couple of days, a container will arrive carrying more of this stuff. Twelve hundred pounds, in fact."

"What?" Bani asked. "Twelve hundred?!"

"And that's just the meth," Boscoe continued. "There's a similar amount of cocaine as well. And just to keep things interesting, my employer has added a fifty pound bag of Ecstasy, divided into single, double and triple stack rolls."

"Making it worth well over two hundred million," Solomon calculated slowly. His stunned expression slowly morphed into one of awed and happy greed.

Boscoe nodded. "And that's with the cocaine uncut. We insist on a certain level of purity, but we allow a further 20% dilution—after all, you want to stay awake for your high, eh?"

"I wouldn't be particularly interested in the Ecstasy," Shuo said. His face, tight and pale, eyes black and wide like gun barrels, was even more devoid of feeling than before. "But the rest is...highly interesting."

"I never said only one person can win the right to distribute the goods and mop up the profits," Boscoe said smoothly. "That's why I contacted several of you. It may even be too much for one dealer—it's definitely too much for one city. And that," he said, gesturing at the porter, who gave him an envelope, "brings me to why I have invited you all here."

_Finally_, Ressler thought.

"To test you. To see whether you've got what it takes to take on this responsibility, because I can tell you it is a responsibility. In a couple of days, one, maybe two, or who knows, maybe three of you will have, in your hands, the equivalent of two hundred, two hundred and ten million dollars, with an individual profit of between thirty to fifty million. We're not just going to give that to you. You need to show loyalty, dedication, cunning and ruthlessness. If this falls into the wrong hands, you will not be the only one with a problem. I will have a problem too, being more or less responsible for picking the right distributors." he smiled a little, showing the tips of his canines. "I hate problems. And because I hate problems, I'm inviting you to help me solve one." He opened the envelope and took out one picture, which he laid, face up, on the gray dish. It showed a gaunt, mocha-coloured face appearing to look even thinner because of the hair pulled away from his face in tight braids close to his scalp. "This is Skinny, also known as James Butler Rainfield. He used to be an associate of mine. However, a few days ago, Skinny decided that he was entitled to more than his due and made off with the merchandize. He took it to his little HQ in the East side, and I want it back."

"What was it he took?" Ressler asked.

"Twenty pounds. Meth. But this particular assignment," he smiled at the word although his eyes remained cold, "Has three objectives. I want three things back from this raid. Or rather," he amended, "two, with one a personal bonus. One: Skinny." He tapped his index on the picture. "I want him, alive if possible, dead if it's unavoidable. But I want him gone before the container comes in and that means we collect him, tonight. Second objective," another photograph, this one of a sturdy black briefcase.

_Really?_ Ressler thought, amused. _You've made a picture of it? What the hell is this, an RPG? Go forth and bring me a ring, a book and a staff?_

"The merchandise," Boscoe went on, oblivious of Ressler's mirth. "He might have sold some of it. That's fine, I'll make do with the cash. And the third objective..." He hesitated before placing the last picture on top of the stack and kept it covered with his hand for a few seconds. "Like I said, this one's personal. The third objective is this." He removed his hand and Ressler, who was watching his face instead of the picture, noticed a short spasm of pain on his face. From the other men came different sounds of disbelief, surprise and, from Claus, humour. He looked down on the picture and saw that it was a photograph of a young boy, perhaps three years old, all dimples and shiny baby teeth and fine, fluffy white-blonde hair, smiling brightly into the camera.  
_What the hell? _Ressler sharply gazed back up at Boscoe. "Is he yours?"

"Yes," the man said simply. "Skinny took him as insurance."

Claus lit up a cigarette. "I'm sorry, man," he drawled. "I mean it: I'm real sorry about your kid. But I didn't come here to retrieve kidnapped toddlers."

"I'm not asking you to do so," Boscoe returned. "If anyone's looking for that boy it'll be me. All I ask is that if you find him, you holler for me or take him with you. Make sure he doesn't get hurt. Your objectives are, of course, the dope and the man. Skinny. Take a good long look at him, because most of his gang look like that. You can further recognize him by his ring; he has a fat gold ring with a big fucking red rock on it."

He passed the photo on, but Ressler didn't think he'd need a ring to identify the man. He wasn't even sure he'd try hunting him down. _A child. A hostage situation. What kind of fucked-up bullshit is that?_

Bani cleared his throat. "When did you want to go and do this?"

"Now."

"Now. You want us to up and leave and invade the Eastern slums right fucking now?"

"Not just the six of us," Boscoe said. "My boys'll tag along too."

"And what's the number of Skinny's gang?" Solomon wanted to know.

Boscoe spread his hands. "I'd say around twenty."

"And your 'boys'?"

"I've got seven."

Claus began to laugh. "You want us to go out in the middle of the night and attack twenty men holed up in a maze of degenerate houses, find their boss, haul him out; find your shit, bring it back; find your kid, liberate it for you; and _then_ you'll consider whether we're worthy to deal your employer's meth?"

"Correct," Boscoe said calmly.

The big man chortled, belching smoke like a volcano. "Hell, Boscoe, you know what, I'll come with you. Sure, we'll find your man and the meth, and if we come across your kid, we'll take him with us too. Whaddaya say, Stone, you're in as well?"

"I hadn't anything planned for the night, anyway," Ressler deadpanned.

Bani just smiled, showing his diamonds, and Solomon drummed his hands on the table, nodding. Only Shuo did not give his assent aloud, but inclined his head briefly when Boscoe asked whether he'd be joining them.

"Good," said Boscoe, visibly bolstered. He got out a map and pointed out the layout of the slums. At his gesture, the porter rolled over a chest on wheels. In it were two shotguns and five baseball bats.

_O crap,_ Ressler thought, when Solomon grabbed a gun with a delighted grin on his face.

"I'm already carrying," Claus said, patting his ribs. Shoulder holster, then. Ressler was, too, both the .36 Glock and the Magnum, but he took a bat out as well. He wasn't planning on shooting anyone, but if he could save lives by bashing a few heads in, well, that'd only be a good thing, right?

He noticed Shuo didn't take an additional weapon and hoped to god he didn't have a katana tucked away in his jacket. The man met his gaze, his eyes like black glass and his features like stone; no smile, no leer, not even a frown. Christ, but this man was scary. Claus was a rapist troglodyte and Solomon might be a psychopath, but at least they were human. If there was anyone Ressler secretly hoped to see gunned down by Skinny's gang, it would be that disturbing marble-faced sister-tattooed son of a bitch.

When they went downstairs and were introduced to Boscoe's men, an all-white, leather jacket toting group, Ressler considered calling in, but decided against it. For one, he wouldn't know when to make a discreet call; the men were already filing into three trucks parked outside the Lion's Den. And secondly…what was that going to achieve? They might be stopped, and then what? Boscoe's little ceremony would be ruined. And what about Boscoe's kid; what would happen to him if the police deigned to make an entrance? At most he'd put Keen and any other backup in danger of exposure.

He left his phone in his back pocket and made sure to get into the same car as Boscoe.

"What's your kid's name?" he asked, speaking over the roar of the engine as they skidded off the parking lot and hoping that that same noise would mask their conversation. Shuo was riding shotgun, and he didn't want him to overhear, if possible.

Boscoe looked at him, silent.

"Look, dude, when I see him, I need to address him by name or he'll just be scared of me. We don't want him to go running off into the crossfire, do we? What's his name?"

Boscoe's mouth tightened. "Jamie. Jim for short."

"How old is he? Picture any recent?"

"The picture was taken last week," Boscoe said, and Ressler felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. _Oh yeah, this is no coincidence. _"He's almost four."

"I'll keep an eye out for him." Both eyes, as a matter of fact. Not only was there no way he was going to focus on hunting down some lowlife or a suitcase of drugs if there was a child in danger, but he was also convinced that if he saved the child, Boscoe would feel like he owed him. Loyalty and dedication, right? That worked both ways.

He noticed that his hands hurt; he was gripping the bat so tightly his fingers were bloodless. Despite himself, his heart was pumping with anticipation. Not all of his excitement could be blamed on the meth, and neither could the testosterone-filled atmosphere. It was a very basic response to danger, and something he'd always enjoyed. You didn't join up with Special Ops or the FBI as a field agent if you were a coward. He liked danger, and he wasn't averse to violence either. He'd never looked _forward_ to it this much, though. The desire to get out of the car and simply start _fucking shit up_ was almost like a physical need, and when the truck finally stopped and he could get out, could stretch his legs and run into the nearest building with five other guys, kicking down doors and screaming at the top of his lungs, it was a release almost as good as sex.

Skinny's gang was spread out over one block of ramshackle apartments that looked noticeably better on the inside than on the outside and most of which were broken through to create bigger spaces. Boscoe and his men invaded the place like a horde of shrieking Mongols, inciting confusion and panic in the sleeping inhabitants and making the more militant members grab for their weapons.

Ressler found himself on a staircase with Boscoe (intentionally) and Solomon, who barrelled through a door as if it were made of cardboard. Startled faces appeared in the hallway; one man dived for a weapon.

"Freeze!" Solomon yelled, running over to him and kicking him in the jaw. "Keep it down, asshole, face to the floor! And you, get over here, motherfucker! Where's Skinny, huh, you sonofabitch, where is he? Where is he?!"

"That ain't him," Boscoe called. "Leave him." He ran on, into the next apartment, Ressler hot on his heels. Inside, six men, alerted by the racket next door, had already grabbed for a weapon, but only one of them had a gun. He levelled it at Boscoe, but his first shot went wild and Ressler, twirling like a Dervish from behind Boscoe, smashed the wrist of the hand holding the gun with his baseball bat, sending the weapon skittering into the corner. He followed up the swing of the bat with a solid punch to the nose with his left fist, looked at the face he'd just bruised and dismissed it. Not Skinny. Neither were any of the other males in the room, which didn't stop Solomon from firing at them with the shotgun. The gun's report was deafening in the small room—as was the screaming of one of the victims.

_Christ, that idiot's starting to kill people._ Thankfully, one of the other gang members clubbed the hulking man in the back with a crow bar. Solomon roared, lashed out with the gun, but went down after a second hit. Another man ran for him with a knife. Ressler kicked him in the knee and elbowed him in the face when he wouldn't stay down.

"Let's keep things fair, shall we?" he said, grinning.

Boscoe ignored both Solomon and the fighting around him, scanning the place like a hound. The whole complex had woken up by now, and chaos ruled supreme, screams and shots sounding everywhere.

Ressler kicked the man with the crow bar in the back and left Solomon to duke it out with the last two of Skinny's men. He'd probably win, but wouldn't have the time to reload the gun, so chances he'd kill anyone were slim. He shoved Boscoe in the back. "Move! Next building."

Boscoe shot a quick look at Solomon, who was fending off the two guys.

Ressler grinned. "Ruthlessness was a desired quality, wasn't it? He'll be fine, come on, there's no one else here."

"You go," Boscoe called back. He made for a small room in the back. But apparently he found nothing there, because he was back before Ressler had entered the next house on the top floor—and this sounded more promising. The moment Boscoe kicked down the door a woman screamed, and he heard the whimpering of children. But the next moment the crying was drowned in shots, sounding impossibly loud, and Boscoe threw himself back into the hallway. Hail punched huge holes in the wall behind him. Ressler had simply ducked and now straightened while the thug in the doorway—why didn't the man get back into cover, was he retarded or something?—discovered that he only had one shot with this type of gun. He flipped the baseball bat in his hand and then tossed it, spinning, straight into the man's head. It only clipped him, but it brought him off-balance, and the next moment Boscoe was back and shoved his gun beneath his chin.

"The kid! The white kid. Where is he? Is he here?"

"Fuck you!" the man spat. Ressler shoved past them and into the next room, Magnum drawn now he'd lost his bat. He did not intend to shoot anyone, but like hell was he going anywhere unarmed. Something shrieked, high and shrill, to his left, and as he aimed in that direction, using both hands because although he might look like a cop carrying it like that, he was not going to sacrifice precision for inconspicuousness; another person took a swing at him with what he first thought was a club. He saw it from the corner of his eye and flung up his arm to deflect it; if he hadn't, his attacker would most likely have brained him. As it was, his right arm went numb and he almost fumbled the gun with his left. The wailing continued, but he ignored it and, in a smooth, coordinated movement, thudded his left fist into the club-wielder's stomach, using the gun as improvised brass knuckles.

The person let out a high, breathless cry and crumpled to the ground, clutching her ribs and retching.

A girl.

She looked to be about seventeen years old, and the club was in fact the steel part of a vacuum cleaner hose.

Christ, he'd just hit a girl in the stomach.

"You crazy bitch!" he screamed, outraged both at himself and at her, for putting herself in harm's way and fucking _hurting_ him in the process. "What the hell do you think you're doing? I could have shot you!"

"Don't hurt them!" another girl sobbed—the shrieker from his left, he discovered. She was slightly older than the girl with the vacuum cleaner hose—a sister, perhaps?, and three little children were cowering behind her, all of them screaming with fear. None of them were blonde.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he bit out. Christ, what the hell was he doing? What were all these women and children doing here?"

_They __**live**__ here, you stupid son of a bitch!_ a part of him that had been silent all evening snarled at him—the part, perhaps, that was an FBI agent instead of a total moron playing at being a gangster._ This isn't an HQ, this is their HOME._

For one moment he didn't know what to do; the situation was just that unreal. Then he shook himself. "Where is the blonde kid?" he asked, keeping the gun carefully lowered and pointing away from the children. "The blonde boy!" he repeated, screaming it into the older girl's face when she didn't answer—which made her burst into tears. The children behind her started howling in earnest. _Oh that's just great, Aaron Stone. Yeah, you're a big hero, you, scaring innocent kids to death._ But he gritted his teeth and snarled at her to stop crying and just tell him, because if Solomon burst through that door, these kids would not only be scared but _dead_, and he wasn't leaving without Jamie Boscoe.

"Ain't no white kid here," the girl from the floor coughed. She painfully pushed herself to her knees, hands still pressed to her belly. Threads of bile and saliva hung from her lips; but she spat and faced him with a defiance that made him want to hit her in the face (W_hat? Why?) _and applaud her at the same time. "All's here is us, and we ain't got nothing to do with any blonde boy."

"Do you know where he is?" She managed to look stubborn as well as hurt, and he almost screamed with frustration. "Look, Lady, I don't want to hurt you, but there are several men out there who want nothing better, so give me _something_ and make those kids stop making that goddamned _noise_!" this to the other girl, who dropped down and pulled the children against her, more or less muffling their cries, even though she was sobbing herself. The other girl eyed him uncertainly.

"You…" she began, but he raised the arm she'd hit—and man, was that starting to hurt—and snapped, "Tell me! Where is he?"

"With Angie."

"And where's that?"

"At James Rainfield's."

"The number! Tell me the number of the house!"

"One t-twenty-eight!"

Wordlessly, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room. Boscoe had just dealt with a second aggressor—or maybe he should start referring to them as defenders. At least the man was still breathing, the shot wound in his shoulder bleeding badly, but as of yet not life-threatening. Not for long, though, if Boscoe's question, an inane, continually repeated "WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS HE?" wasn't going to be answered pretty damn soon.

Ressler snapped at him. "Hey! Quit that. I know where he is."

Boscoe raised his head, eyes bloodshot and murderous. Apparently drugs, rage and too much testosterone—too much of everything, really—could even destroy his calm. "Where?" he spat.

"128. With Skinny."

"Celia, you bitch!" the man on the ground howled, but Boscoe knocked him out with a well-placed kick and took off at a dead run.

Again, Ressler followed him. They pounded down the stairs, ducked back out into the street and had to take shelter behind a wailing car. Some idiot on the other side of the street was spraying bullets all around with an automatic.

_Uzi._ The sound of it triggered half-forgotten memories of pain and heat and fever and butterflies. Ressler couldn't see if it was one of Boscoe's men, or one of Skinny's. From behind the car, he scanned the street numbers. Number 128 was, naturally, on the other side of the street—as he was counting apartments, one of the windows broke and spat out the flailing body of a man. He landed on the sidewalk with a thud and fell silent.

Next to him, Boscoe cursed.

"One of your guys?" Ressler asked.

"Yes. I've got to get up there." Ressler stared pointedly at the Uzi-wielding guy. "I _know_, god damn it!" He carefully poked his head around the back bumper, but a rattle of bullets into the car frame made him pull back hastily. "He's covered by that truck. I can't get a shot at him."

Not one of his own men, then.

Ressler gestured at a car parked several yards down the road. "We might have a better chance from over there. Come on."

They sprinted to the other car, where two of Boscoe's bikers were already crouched behind the tires. One of the men was bleeding profusely from a broken nose.

"Bos!" the non-bleeding man greeted. "Any luck?"

"He's over there," Boscoe said, indicating number 128. "With Skinny. Any of the guys in there already?"

"Not if that was Mike," the man with the broken nose said nasally. "We lost sight of him just a few minutes in."

"Good instincts, bad self-restraint," the other said, not sounding overly perturbed about his buddy's possible demise. "Should've waited for us to catch up." He was lean but well-muscled, handsome and knowing it, with blonde hair hanging down to his collar and a rough stubble coating his jaws. He smelled of detergent, Sanex deo spray and cigarettes.

_You must be the cleanest biker I've ever run into, _Ressler grinned internally. He peeked through the broken window and quickly ducked down again when Uzi-guy started shooting again. At one point, the man had to run out of bullets. But so far, he hadn't, and the other side of the street seemed a very long way away.

"Perhaps we can…" Boscoe started, and then Xian Shuo appeared in the window of the apartment behind the man with the Uzi and shot him in the head with a fucking LMG.

"Holy Moses," Clean biker drawled. "Is that one of your new guys?"

"Yes," said Boscoe. He got to his feet. "Come on, let's move."

The four of them ran to the other side of the street, and Boscoe and Clean biker took turns putting their shoulder against the door until Bloody nose pushed them aside and blew out the lock with his shotgun. Ressler kept back a little. He clenched and unclenched his right hand, testing out the working of his arm. His fingers could move ok, but he had difficulty keeping hold of his gun. He supported his grip with his left hand and trooped into the building after Boscoe and his men.

Resistance was more serious here—no girls or bats, only tough-looking men with pistols. But now their head quarters were breached, they were hard-pressed to keep their ground. A SWAT team would have taken half an hour to secure the building and storm number 128, but a dozen guys hopped up on meth managed in ten minutes what a specially trained and bullet-proof vest-wearing force would have said was impossible, through sheer heedlessness.

Ressler didn't fear the bullets because he was indestructible. He rode the tide of adrenaline and violence up, aiming at legs and blowing them out when he had the chance, although at the moment, he wasn't really worried about the consequences of killing someone. All that mattered was reaching number 128, save the kid, get the bad guy, find the drugs and get out again. The only thing he had to keep in check was his own tendency to bark out 'clear!' whenever a hallway was free of hostiles.

At some point, both Shuo and Bani joined them again. The black man was bleeding from a wound in his leg, but it hardly slowed him down. Shuo looked as if he were on his way to a tea party, the light machine gun dangling almost casually from his hand. His other hand held a thin blade, stained with blood. A spatter of red ran over his face like war paint. Ressler couldn't help grinning at him, because never mind that the man was an asshole, that thing he'd done with the guy with the Uzi was pretty cool. Shuo favoured him with a tiny nod.

Maybe his facial muscles simply didn't work.

The third floor, on which 128 was situated, was a battlefield. Boscoe, his men, Ressler, Shuo and Bani literally stormed the place, starting with 122 and working their way through. One of the bikers was gunned down, but another took his place and shot the assailant in the arm. Ressler finished him off with a club to the head with the butt of his gun. Two others of Skinny's gang surrendered and were both beaten unconscious.

Next apartment. Ressler skipped it, and followed Shuo into number 126 through a broken window and over the body lying senseless on the kitchen counter. Gunfire to their right, in the hallway. Further away, panicked shouting. This house, like some on the other side of the street, had been broken through to create a larger apartment, and Ressler grinned manically when he realised he'd reached his goal already. And was that the sound of a child screaming?

Yes, it was. He stuck his head back out of the window and hollered. "BOSCOE! In here!"

Skinny didn't have a chance, really. He may have thought he was prepared for Boscoe's retaliation, but he wasn't. He wasn't ready for Xian Shuo cutting his way through his gang like a pair of scissors through a sack of cloth. No one had warned him for the likes of Claus Sacher, who came strolling into the busted up apartment with scratch marks on his face and arms, a satisfied expression on his face and a dripping baseball bat in his hand; asking aloud if he was late to the party. Skinny couldn't have anticipated a madman like Solomon, bleeding from several wounds and uncaring of all of them, to come blundering into his living room, bellowing like an enraged bear, and start mowing down people and furniture alike with the Uzi he'd picked up outside. Not that Solomon kept it up for long; Ressler shoved him aside before he could shoot up more than one thin wall (and any kids seeking shelter behind it) and socked him in the jaw to make him calm down. It only made the big man stagger, but when Ressler shouted, "Stop shooting, you fucking moron, you're killing our own!" into his face, a spark of awareness rekindled in his blood-shot eyes, and he switched the automatic to single bullet mode.

They found Skinny holed up in a large backroom behind a desk, surrounded by four of his finest. The room was about twenty by thirty feet, with the desk at the far end of the room. A bar rose up halfway along one wall, with an impressive collection of liquor displayed on shelves built into the wall. A huge flat screen dominated the wall next to the bar; two sofas, a low square table and a couple of chairs stood in front of it. Originally, a large, rectangular solid oak wood table had stood somewhere in the centre of the room; now it was turned on its side a bit to the side of the desk and provided the defenders with some cover. Another sofa, a big leather monstrosity, stood closer to the door.

Any FBI team presented with this situation would have shaken their collective heads and attempted negotiations.

But tonight was not a night for negotiations.

Clean biker, appearing in a whiff of shampoo and gun smoke, took out the first body guard by shooting his legs away from underneath him. The second body guard clipped him, and he dropped in the door opening, but Shuo rolled into the room from behind him, bounced across the floor like a black rubber ball and stabbed body guard number 2 in the groin with his knife. Blood started spurting; Shuo's face received another streak of war paint and the man went down screaming.

Ressler dove in after Shuo. Both Skinny and one of his last two remaining body guards were firing at him, but he made it unharmed to the leather sofa, threw it over and used its cover to slither further into the room. A moment later, Claus threw himself against the leather as well, his ruddy face split in a psychotic grin. "Good times, eh?" He laughed as a bullet pierced the sofa not an inch from his nose.

"Wonderful. Cover me." Without waiting for confirmation, Ressler launched himself at the bar, dodging bullets as he skidded across the floor. But Claus must be covering his ass, because he reached the bar in one piece. Once behind it, it was easy to follow it to the TV den in a half-crouch.

The Uzi barked; Solomon had joined the fray as well. Boscoe and his men stayed outside room and Ressler could hear him shout, "I want him alive if possible!"

_Yeah, yeah, you want his head on a silver platter, but you want to choose the platter yourself. I get it. Where could that kid be?_

During a moment of silence, he could hear the whooping sound of police sirens—well duh, of course, you couldn't shoot up a whole block of flats without someone calling the police. _Time to speed things up. We can't be arrested. I'd have to blow my cover and we can't have that, can we?_

But for several minutes he took no action and bided his time. With the rest of their little drug dealer coterie descending upon them, Skinny and his remaining guards seemed to have forgotten about him. Maybe they thought he was down.

Shuo was pinned down on the other side of the room, unable to leave cover without risking being shot, and Claus had no one to watch his six and so was still trapped behind the sofa. Bani—where the hell had he come from?—took out the third guard with a thrown bowie knife, of all things, before making a mad dash to the overturned table. Skinny—who, Ressler assessed, could not be older than early twenties—shredded his arm with the blast of a shotgun and Bani went down with a high scream of agony.

Ressler shuddered. _I know what that feels like, buddy._ He focused on Skinny again. _Come on, kid. Make your move. I know you've got one more trick up your sleeve._

Solomon slaughtered the last guard with a lucky bullet to the throat, and Skinny played his trick. He reached between his legs, under the desk, and pulled out a terrified little boy.

Jamie Boscoe.

"Stop!" he bellowed, and pressed the nozzle of his pistol against the child's head. "Stop, or by god, Boscoe, I'll splatter his brains all over the wall."

"Stand down!" Boscoe screamed immediately. At the sound of his voice, ringing out clearly in the sudden silence, the boy let out a whimper.

"Daddy!"

"Shut up," Skinny snapped. He clenched the kid against his chest.

"It's ok, Jamie," Boscoe said. "He won't hurt you."

"Yes," said Skinny, "he will. He will blow your fucking brains out if daddy doesn't move the fuck out. I mean it, Boscoe, call off your goons, or your son's dead."

"You kill my son, I will keep you alive for days," Boscoe grated out.

Skinny laughed scathingly. "He'll still be dead. Uh-uh," he said, whipping his head to where Shuo had slowly risen to his feet, "Didn't you hear what I said? You keep down over there."

Shuo stared at him blankly. "Do you really think," he said calmly, "that I care about that child in your arms?" He smiled, and it was terrifying.

"Shuo, don't you dare!" Boscoe bassed, and at that moment Ressler took a calculated risk. Skinny, distracted by Shuo's disturbingly convincing representation of pure evil made flesh, had turned his upper body and the child pressed to his chest, causing the arm holding his weapon to jut out to the side. Ressler carefully took aim from behind the bar and used the .44 to blow his elbow away.

The shot was deafening, and for one second its echoes seemed to cast everything in slow motion, like an audio stroboscope; then Skinny shrieked as his lower arm collapsed in a spray of blood. He dropped the boy to clutch at his arm, screaming. At the same time, everyone else in the room surged forward. Ressler, who was closest, scooped up little Jamie and pushed him into Boscoe's arms before the man could kill Skinny in front of his son's eyes. Shuo claimed Skinny as his, tying off his shattered arm with something that looked suspiciously like a garrotte before the man could bleed to death. Claus ducked beneath the desk and came up, crowing, with a fat attaché case. Solomon, dripping blood like a Hansel and Gretel trail of crumbs, found a safe in the corner. Bani, only half conscious, was hauled to his feet by one of Boscoe's men. In the middle of the pandemonium, Boscoe stood holding his son. He kissed the little blonde head and murmured that everything would be alright.

Outside, the sirens came closer; only a few minutes had passed.

"Bos," the biker with the broken nose nudged him, 'We have to leave."

"I think we've got everything," Claus said with a satisfied nod at the briefcase in his hand and at the reeling figure of James Rainfield. "How's the tyke?"

"Safe," Boscoe replied firmly. He raised his voice, "Head out! Move it! Leave the safe, White, we ain't got the time and I'm satisfied. Come on! Make sure we leave no one behind!"

And while the sirens tore up the night and cast the place in a blue-red-white light, Boscoe and his men left the scene.


	5. Chapter 5

Raymond Reddington looked up from James Joyce's _Ulysses_ at the knock on his door. The bed he was sitting up in was enormous, made to hold at least one man and two to five women; the door was a long distance away. He carefully marked the page and called, "Come in."

Dembe's head appeared. Despite the late hour he was still dressed and wide awake. "You may want to turn on the local news," he said.

Red searched for a remote control, but the bed wasn't his and neither was the furniture, and in the end Dembe turned it on manually. They were in luck, and the channel that came up was a local one.

"Sit," Red said, patting the bed, and Dembe lowered himself on the edge at the foot.

The sound was tuned down, and impossible to up without a remote, but the screen clearly showed a great number of police cars and even a helicopter with a search light flying over East Baltimore. The text in the news bar below the footage read: _five dead and more than 23 wounded in brutal raid on minor drug lord_, and _perpetrators gone up in smoke, _and more in that trend.

Red chuckled, delighted.

"Do you think that was him?" Dembe asked.

"Ressler? And Boscoe? I expect so. I knew he had it in him."

"Boscoe?"

"Ressler. The moment he went AWOL to revenge Audrey, and did so with such total conviction and complete indifference regarding the consequences, I knew he wouldn't let me down."

Dembe raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were of the opinion that Donald Ressler was the weakest link in the task force."

"I was," Red nodded, "but mainly because of his distrust of me. I was not certain his personal hatred of me might not supersede any commands given by Harold to cooperate with me."

The other eyebrow joined the first one. "He's an FBI agent," Dembe said. "You mentioned he used to be Special Ops. He chased you like a hound and tried to kill you in Brussels. Are you saying you no longer believe he will turn on you?"

"Oh, he'll put a bullet in my head the moment he'll get the order," Red said airily. "But if the command is not given…no, I don't think he will."

"You don't think he will." He paused for a moment. "Is that why you saved his life, when Garrick came for you, even though it was the FBI that put you in such a vulnerable position in the first place? And again, in Mexico? To win his trust?"

Red laughed. "Win his trust? I never won anything from Ressler. No. I kept him from bleeding out in the Post Office Box because that was the only decent thing to do—after all, he was ready to forfeit his own life to save mine, simply because I happened to be in his protective custody, and it would have been spectacularly bad manners to just leave him there to die. Not to mention the fact," he added lightly, "that Ressler was the only one around who knew the code to the box, and once we were in, it would have been very unpleasant to be locked up with a corpse." He shrugged. "As for Mexico; in a way, he did the same thing there, only a little more directly." Dembe was silent. Red hadn't spoken about Mexico much. "He caught a bullet for me," he explained. "Literally pushed me out of its way and took it instead of me. Trust me," he said, staring at the screen, which was now showing a crying woman with a swollen, bleeding face being carted off into an ambulance, "I considered leaving him behind. Might have been forced to, if he'd been any worse off. But he kept up, and I must confess I was charmed by his tenacity."

"Ah," Dembe said, as if this explained a lot. Perhaps it did, Red was aware he had certain weaknesses. Still, his driver looked puzzled, as was only logical, Red supposed. Dembe was loyal to a _person_, namely one Raymond Reddington, and this loyalty was absolute because Dembe felt he owed his life, his sanity and his current wellbeing to Red. He was most probably correct in his assumption, too.

Ressler's loyalties lay with an _ideal_, that of his country, his flag, his job, the American laws and rules that brought order to his life. He was probably brought up that way. He would follow these rules, blindly, like a soldier, because that was what he was. His ideals demanded he see anyone not complying with these rules as a degenerate, unworthy of respect. Likewise, he was so set in his mind that he could not even imagine any sane person not wanting to follow those rules, not unless they were criminals. When Red saved Ressler's life, not once but _twice_, he gained the man's gratitude—a grudging, sullen gratitude—but not his respect. Ressler may be glad to be alive, but he wasn't at all happy that he'd needed to be saved in the first place, especially by a man he detested. In Ressler's eyes, Red imagined, there was only black and white—which was what made him such an excellent field agent. It wasn't that he didn't have compassion for those led astray, but he was as ruthless in his application of the rules as those that broke them. If someone broke the law without authorization by one of his holy higher powers, Ressler hated them on principle and would do anything to bring them down.

But then Audrey had been killed, and Ressler's ideals had all collapsed in front of his eyes. Not only had he not been able to protect his friends; had he been unable to save the woman he loved—the _only_ woman, if Red's research into Ressler's life was correct, he'd ever loved; but when his anger and loss had threatened to consume him, the same regulations that had always supported him had dumped him at the sideline, forbidding him to become involved. And because he saw himself as a righteous man, Ressler had seen it fit to break his own rules, which suddenly made no sense to him anymore, get involved with Reddington and carry out vengeance on his own. And the moment he made the conscious decision to seek Red's aid, he betrayed himself so totally something inside of him broke, or changed, or twisted, in a way. Lizzie had implored Red to help stop Ressler before he killed Jonica, because, as she had put it, Ressler wasn't like Red and becoming a murderer would destroy him. As if Red simply wiped his conscious clean from the heinous acts he performed, as if it were a whiteboard.

Ah, Lizzie. His oblivious student, his lovely little girl. So naïve still, in some ways.

Unbeknownst to her, or Cooper, Ressler had already destroyed a part of himself, simply by forsaking his own ideals. Maybe he wasn't even aware of it, but despite the fact that he had not killed the man responsible for his lover's death with his own hands, the Ressler working at the Post Office today was a vastly different man than the self-righteous paragon of American justice of a year ago.

Red smiled a little, the curve of his mouth both pleased and slightly melancholy. "In a manner of speaking, love broke him," he murmured, appreciating the melodrama in his own words.

Dembe's face was unreadable—one of the things Red appreciated about him. He still had to guess at the thoughts of his friend. "Agent Ressler is still an FBI agent," he said stubbornly. "And unlike Elizabeth Keen, does neither trust you, nor depend on you in any way."

Red shrugged again. The footage on TV was set on loop and banished to a smaller screen in the corner, and a woman with blonde hair and too much make-up was explaining something in the foreground. "Perhaps. But he's also a loose canon. As long as Cooper aims him, he shoots at FBI-designated targets. But with the right incentive, it's possible to make him switch targets while maintaining the illusion that he's still Cooper's weapon."

He couldn't help another chuckle. Oh, but it was brilliant, really. Ressler hated him and everything he stood for with a passion, but it was so easy to manipulate him. The man still thought of himself as an upstanding citizen, an outstanding agent—and he was, really. But he also had that dark side he hadn't even acknowledged yet. If he had, Ressler would have been back at the Post office, and Red's hunt for Blofeld would have ground to a halt. Of course, Lizzie might still call him to tell him the deal was off, but somehow he thought Ressler had run with whatever Boscoe had wanted him to do and played his own part in the chaos displayed so attractively on TV.

All Red had to do now, was make sure that Cooper wouldn't get cold feet and pull Ressler out. That shouldn't be a problem, though.

"I think I've seen enough," he said, with a nod at the TV screen, and Dembe got to his feet and turned it off. "Thanks."

Dembe regarded Red, and the monstrous bed he was lying in, with scepticism. "The owner of this house…does he have a harem?"

"Either that or a lot of children," Red said. He picked up his book again. A first edition, courtesy of his host. On a pillow next to his, three cell phones lay like complimentary gifts in a hotel room. None of them had gone off yet, and he was beginning to hope none of them would, tonight. "Sleep well, Dembe."

"Good night," Dembe said, and left the room.

Ressler remembered little of the trip back to the Lion's Den, high as he was on endorphins and adrenaline and sheer relief. Oh, and meth, that as well. Again, he sat in the back of the truck, Clean biker on one side and Boscoe on the other, and smiled at the child when Jamie Boscoe's small face surfaced from his dad's chest. The boy was too traumatized to return the smile, but at least he had stopped crying. That was something, at least.

Boscoe's state of mind was a different matter. He regarded Ressler with an odd expression on his face.

"What?" Ressler asked when the stare became uncomfortable.

"That was…one hell of a shot," Boscoe said. He'd raised his voice to be heard over the roar of the engine, but only by Ressler. "For one moment I thought you'd just killed my son."

Ressler shrugged. "I'm a pretty good marksman." Boscoe nodded slowly. Resser nudged him with his elbow, grimacing as that jarred his contused arm. "I was certain of my shot," he said earnestly. "Wouldn't have taken it if I hadn't been." Unconsciously, he sought out Shuo's black-clad form in the cabin of the truck. "I'm not like him."

"Why would you let the life of my son take precedence over the main objective of this trip?"

"I didn't," Ressler said flatly. "I got you Skinny, alive and helpless. Saving your kid in the process was an added bonus. One I hope you won't forget any time soon."

Boscoe's mouth pursed. He caressed the blonde head with a blood-stained head. "No," he said softly. "I won't forget."

"Good." They were silent for a couple of minutes. The other men in the truck were whooping and laughing, even the ones who'd gotten wounded. In the other truck, they were a little more subdued. Carrying a body with you would do that to you. Ressler was surprised they only had the one body: the guy who was thrown out of the window, Mike. Then again, a couple of the wounded might take a turn for the worse later, as they were functioning on adrenaline alone right now.

Like Bani. His arm had looked like something you'd put in spaghetti sauce.

_Go on, say it. Repeat it. Minced beef._

He swallowed, shook his head against that particular memory and rubbed his thigh.

"What about the wounded?" he asked. "Hospitals will report shot wounds, but some of your guys definitely need advanced medical care."

"We have a doctor in the Den," Boscoe told him. "Unless it's life threatening, no one needs a visit to the hospital."

_That's convenient. What is your men's view on amputation, if I may ask?_ He kept his mouth shut, hard as it was, and spent another couple of minutes watching the streetlights go by. The adrenaline was fading, but he still felt over-alert and twitchy, and it wasn't an entirely pleasant sensation. Again his attention was drawn to the other truck. Apart from the body, it held the bound figure of James Rainfield.

"What are you going to do with Skinny?"

"What's it to you?"

He glanced at Boscoe. The man's face was unreadable, but his hands cupped his son's head protectively. "Nothin'."

"Damn right it isn't. You're here for the shipment, Stone, not to comment on the way I lead my gang."

"I'd just hate to be at the Lion's Den when the cops burst in and find the remains of Skinny's body floating in a vat of acid in the backroom, is all," Ressler said calmly.

Boscoe snorted. "I'm not taking Skinny to the Den. I'm not stupid." He was silent for a moment. "I may not even kill him," he added, softly, barely audible over the engine. "I got my boy back alive and unharmed, and that's more than I'd counted on."

_Yeah, he's totally fine, _Ressler snorted internally, _it's not as if he'll need a lifetime of therapy to get over tonight. Poor kid._ He wondered if the boy had a mother, and whether Boscoe was planning on taking the kid to her, or if he thought it would be better for the traumatized little squirt to stay in the present company of violent assholes, and if so, if he really thought he wasn't stupid. Again, he bit his tongue and kept quiet. A lifetime of keeping his thoughts to himself really helped not running off at the mouth when it was inappropriate. 

After a, to Ressler at least, unspecified length of time they arrived back at the Lion's Den. The parking lot was emptier than when they'd left, but the club itself was as crowded as before. Music and smoky heat rolled into the chilly night air, enveloping them like a warm embrace as they entered the building. The wounded were lead, carried or supported into a room to the left of the entrance, while the others found a place to sit in one of the quieter rooms a few doors down, where they had the bar more or less to themselves. Four of the bikers were injured, although two of them returned after they'd had their wounds taken care of; the rest of them put several bottles of liquor and two pitchers of beer on the table, and set to drinking the rest of the night away.

Of Boscoe's Chosen, as Ressler had sarcastically named them, only Bani and Solomon had to see a doctor, and Solomon returned within twenty minutes. He moved stiffly, and one of his large arms was swathed in bandages, but he toasted readily enough to the success of the mission. Bani did not return. He probably needed surgery—hell, he definitely needed surgery.

Claus carried his scratches—the kind of scratches, Ressler thought uncomfortably, a woman with long-nailed fingers would leave on your face and arms when defending herself if you tried to physically subdue her—like a medal, even touching them fondly once in a while. Ressler's arm, while painful and growing more painful as he was sitting there sipping whiskey, didn't seem too badly damaged beneath the bright colours of his tattoo. He could move all his fingers, bend his wrist and elbow without any problems; it just hurt, and his flesh felt hard and swollen to the touch. No surprises there, either; that girl had swung that pipe with all of her might. He saw it as a kind of just punishment, for scaring those kids so badly. And for enjoying what he'd done, this evening.

Because he had enjoyed it. Quite a lot actually. And so, to remind him that he shouldn't take pleasure in random acts of violence, he was grateful for the bruise he'd got committing them.

The only one of them who wasn't hurt at all, was Shuo. Nobody had told him that he looked like an Indian on the warpath, and his face was still streaked with dried blood. Some of the bikers tried to include him into their conversation, praising him for the way he had handled himself, but the Chinese refused to participate and drank his celebratory beer in silence.

Ressler thought he was an idiot. Part of his assignment was to become friends with Boscoe in order to get intel on the shipment and its deliverer, and the best way to do so was a. rescue his kid, and b. bond with him and his gang members. He'd done the first, and that made it much easier to do the second. It had been his shot that had delivered both the kid and the subject into the bikers' hands, and they made no secret of their admiration for that particular feat. There was something comforting in male camaraderie; something he'd almost forgotten existed. The last time he'd basked in the testosterone-saturated company of male friends was when he was on the Reddington task force with Sam and Bobby and Pete, and that was at least two years ago.

And they were all dead, now.

_I've missed this, _he thought, wryly. _I've been missing this kind of physical action, and the release afterwards. I've missed doing missions, running into a building and shooting everything up. Sure, we do some daring things at the Post Office, and whether you save a woman from a murderer by apprehending the murderer or by hunting him down and killing him by tossing him off a building; saving the woman is the most important objective. But god, I miss the kick of it, sometimes._ He no longer minded doing missions with Keen; she'd learned to shoot first and ask questions later, but it wasn't the same working with a woman, especially such a young and inexperienced one.

And so Aaron Stone waved away the congratulations with a modest smile, clinked glasses with Claus and his scars, Solomon, who seemed to have forgotten he'd hit him in the face, and half a dozen of bikers, and loved it.

Davey Boscoe returned about an hour after they'd returned to the Lion's Den, sans kid and sans Skinny, and joined them around the table of booze, smiling.

"Well," he said, putting his feet on the table and idly toeing a bottle to the side. "All in all, this was a great success, I'd say."

_Yeah, _Ressler thought, _only one casualty. Hooray. Sorry Mike, your sacrifice was appreciated, man; too bad you broke your fucking back falling out of that window, but at least we have our meth back. Thanks._ He emptied his glass and wondered how many he'd had already. He tried to make his drinks last as long as possible, but that was kinda hard when people kept drinking to you. He put his whiskey glass aside and popped open a beer instead.

"Our dear friend Skinny has perhaps sold half a pound of our stuff, but as he's already paid that much in flesh," laughter, "I'm satisfied." He nodded at his present Chosen. "Well done."

"Yes," Shuo said. "We were heroic. What now?"

"Now? Now, we drink, and in two days, the day after tomorrow, or rather the evening after tomorrow, on Friday, we come back here and discuss phase two."

"Phase two." Shuo didn't sigh, but his slight pause was a worthy equivalent. "How many phases does this…gathering have?"

_THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!_ Ressler screamed. Internally. He jammed the beer bottle neck into his mouth to keep from giggling.

Boscoe presented Shuo with a friendly smile. "Only one more. Take it or leave it, Shuo. Or do you have business elsewhere?"

"No," Shuo said.

"Then have another beer and lighten the fuck up, man."

Shuo did not, in fact, lighten the fuck up, and quietly disappeared after another hour. No one regretted his absence.

The rest of them kept sitting there, drinking, wolfing down bags of chips and pretzels, talking about nothing. Talking about nothing as another man was difficult, but as everyone was steadily getting more and more drunk, Ressler wasn't too afraid he'd betray himself. A group of women joined them at one point; all of them apparently in a relationship with Boscoe's bikers. Clean biker, whose real name was Jack and who was usually addressed as Pretty Jack, in particular had a gorgeous girl: all long legs, long blonde hair and long black lashes. About half an hour after she showed up, Jack and she departed as well. Apparently the test was well and truly done, now, and life was returning to normal. Slowly, those with women drifted away, leaving only those sad single men behind: Boscoe, Ressler, Solomon and Claus, and the biker with the broken nose, who was so totally smashed by now he was no longer capable of leaving.

To Ressler's immense surprise, the night was ancient, almost over; he'd thought it about two but it was closer to seven am. Now where had that time gone? And where had all the people in the club gone? He hadn't drunk that much…

His phone chirped, and he pulled it out of his back pocket.

Huh. Lizzie. Posing as Nicky. A very curt _**Where are you?**_

"Anyone interesting?" Claus drawled.

"It's my Baltimore girlfriend," Ressler smirked, and texted back, _**Lion's Den.**_ Within five seconds she sent back, _**Coming to pick you up.**_ Now he wasn't sure that was such a good idea, but Claus distracted him.

"Ahhh, you have a _Baltimore_ girlfriend. One in every town, eh?"

Ressler shrugged. "What can I say? It's nice to come home in every city I go to."

The other man grinned. "So, is she hot? Are you willing to share?"

Dear lord, was Lizzie hot? She could be, if she wanted to. It was strange, but he rarely looked at her that way. She was…she was just _there_. Sure, she was pretty, and she was really good in the sack, but it wasn't as if he jerked off to her image and god, he had not really thought that, had he? But voicing that aloud about his 'girlfriend' wouldn't exactly paint a convincing picture, would it now? So he said, "Yeah, and no, absolutely not, get your own." Which drew laughter from everyone around.

But if Lizzie was coming, he should at least try to focus and see if he didn't have any blood on his face, like Shuo. Christ, he hoped the man hadn't been arrested for looking like a mass murderer. Ressler got up and went to find a bathroom to check for bloodstains.

For Lizzie, coming back to Baltimore was like coming home. Hell, it was home, in a way. She'd grown up here, and lived here for most of her life. Driving through these streets made her feel nostalgic and just a little bit sad. So much had happened since she'd left this place…Good things, bad things…good things that turned out to be bad, like Tom…

Still, being here felt soothing, somehow. She liked seeing the familiar skyline, and the parks, and a little bakery called Grace's, that had been there since she was fourteen.

When she arrived on Wednesday, around nine in the morning, she got herself a roll and a cup of coffee from Grace's and then drove straight on to Nicky's apartment in the suburbs. Why spend time in an impersonal hotel when there was a perfectly good flat waiting for her? She didn't doubt she'd have to become Nicky rather sooner than later, so she might as well get used to it.

The flat was cosy, a three room apartment, not very large but tastefully furnished. There was a kitty litter and two bowls on the floor, but no cat in sight. Either the small red cat's existence was limited to photographs, or it was simply not here.

Nicky's fridge was fully stocked with fresh vegetables, chicken breast, yoghurt, milk and juice. She found pasta in the pantry and a loaf of bread in a basket on the kitchen counter.

Wow.

An investigatory round around the flat painted a more complete picture of the girl she was supposed to be. Nicky read historical fiction and liked artsy knickknacks featuring cats, but she also liked the pre-Raphaelites and had a large reproduction of Leighton's Flaming June on the wall in her bedroom. That entire room was done in soft yellows and blues, with a nyan cat duvet cover on the queen-sized bed, a blue teddy-cloth carpet and blue curtains. Her wardrobe was extensive for a non-existing character, with several ripped jeans and short skirts that made her sigh a little. Ok, so Nicky was about twenty, and Lizzie was seven years older, and she hadn't worn cut-off jeans hotpants in ages, but when she tried on a pair, she was pleasantly surprised at how comfortably they fit, and how well she filled them out.

_Yeah, nothing for keeping your girlish figure than mental turmoil and death threats._ She took the hotpants off with a sigh, changed back into her own skinny jeans and called Ressler with her Nicky phone.

She woke him up, teased him, made him promise to call her as soon as he'd been to his meeting with Boscoe and hung up, allowing him to go back to sleep. He probably needed it, too, after his little drug stunt the day before. Then, she called Cooper with her own phone to tell him that she was all set.

"Good," Cooper said. "We've set up a temporary HQ at the Police Department. Did Aram give you your laptop?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. I'd rather not ask you to come over in person, as it might draw attention to you. I'm going to send you someone's personal file and I'd like to hear your opinion on it."

"Of course," she said. Then, curious, "what kind of opinion?"

"Whether you think she'll be suitable for our team."

_Ooh. A new Meera. So he finally found someone he thinks might be a good replacement._ She felt a twinge of sadness, but repressed it. Malik was dead, and they needed another field agent. "I'll take a look at it straight away."

Cooper rang off, and when she booted up her laptop, the file was in her inbox of the Quantico intranet. The personnel file was of Louisa-Anne Plant, 34, former CIA. She was divorced, no children and had requested to join the Reddington task force after having been stationed all over the world in various undercover operations. Something redacted had happened to her a year ago, possibly what made her want to become a little more home-based. She spoke five languages fluently. IQ of 128. A number of interesting arrests was on her list, mainly terrorists. As for her physical appearance, Louisa-Anna, Louanne for short, was a studious-looking woman with a fine-boned, attractive rather than beautiful face, with short black hair, slightly slanted dark eyes that betrayed an Asian influence and a small, pink mouth. According to the file, she missed her left pinkie, which had been cut off when she'd been taken and tortured in Damascus redacted redacted redacted. She was described as sociable, working well together with others, and dedicated to her job to the point of being a workaholic. _Welcome to the club, _Lizzie thought sardonically.

She studied the rest of the file. Louisa-Anne seemed a good addition to the team. Of course, she'd have a better idea after she'd met her face to face, but at first sight, she looked promising. She sent Cooper a message saying precisely that.

The rest of the day she spent looking up and identifying people somehow connected to Blofeld. Some were already in the FBI or CIA database, others, given by Red, had not been identified as criminals yet. Around five, she powered down the laptop and cooked a meal for herself. For now, they could do nothing until Ressler came back with the names of the men Boscoe had chosen, so she might as well take the evening off. Locking her own cell into a small safe beneath the bed, Lizzie put Nicky's phone on a chair in the bathroom and took a long soak in the bath. Her previous two apartments hadn't had baths, and she enjoyed having one, especially when it turned cold at night. So far, this autumn had been mild, but once the sun was gone the air turned chill.

After her bath, she curled up on the couch in a tee and pyjama bottoms and watched a movie on TV, but it was something cloyingly sweet and romantic, and that made her grumpy. The more perfect the man seemed, she knew, the less truthful he was. She zapped to another channel and watched a nice relaxing slasher movie. Now that was more up her alley. The flick ended at eleven, and Ressler still hadn't called, so she placed the cell on her night stand and read one of Nicky's books in bed. It wasn't half bad, but after half an hour she found her eyes drooping closed and put it aside. Ressler still hadn't contacted her. Well, he'd told her he might be late. Checking that the sound was on, she put the phone back, set the alarm for seven am, turned off the light and went to sleep.

Cooper called her awake about half an hour before her alarm would have gone off; first on the phone now residing in the safe, and then on her Nicky phone.

"Sir?" she asked groggily.

"Have you heard from Ressler?" his gritty voice demanded.

"Uh, no, sir. Why?"

"Check the news. Channel 2. Then suit up, I have the feeling you need to get him."

"Me…you mean Nicky?"

"That's who I'm speaking to, isn't it?" He broke the connection.

"Not much of a morning person, are you, sir?" she asked the dead phone, got up and turned on the TV. The channel in question showed a news item about an armed assault on a place in…oh. Right. Hastily, she typed out a message to Aaron Stone. Jesus Christ, these people had really done a number on that quarter, hadn't they? The anchor even knew to tell that automatic fire arms had been used. The body count so far was six, and the number of wounded 22, with one still in ICU. The body of the minor drug lord, James Rainfield, was still missing. No wonder Cooper was pissing himself.

_Come one, Ressler, reply to my—_the cell beeped and showed her _**Lion's Den.**_

So he was unhurt and able to text back. Maybe this whole assault had nothing to do with him or his assignment. And hey, some pigs were born with rudimentary wings. _**Coming to pick you up, **_she sent back to him, and picked up her jeans and shirt. Then she halted, put them down again. Nicky was about to enter the scene. Better do it in style.

Some people are blessed with that perfect moment and opportunity to make an entrance that slaps you in the face like a boxer's punch. In order to make that entrance, you need a certain kind of lighting, a specific type of door, and a great silhouette. Or, if you were a woman, a red curtain or car door and a shapely leg with a pretty foot in stiletto heels.

The effect of the perfect entrance of a man usually wasn't connected to seduction, but rather to threat or dominance. The reaction usually included glowering, a broadening of shoulders or a cowering from males, and a similar display of body language from women.

When a pretty woman made the perfect entrance on a small group of men, you could actually smell their reaction.

When the girl opened the doors, pushing them away from her with both hands so the light in the room behind her showed her slender body as a dark, curvy shape, much like a violin lit from behind; and calmly sauntered into the room, hips swaying, Ressler swore he could smell the level of musk rising.

_So this is what it feels like when five men get an erection at the same time, _he thought, amused, and almost chuckled as all of them, even the guy with the broken nose, shifted in their chairs. And then a jolt went through him, because the girl was Liz Keen, and he only recognized her now she was only three yards away from him.

Holy crap, how had she got here so quickly, and what was she wearing—and why wasn't she wearing it more often?

_No! Mind out of gutter. _

_Oh, but imagine her chasing a subject in those tiny pants…_

_Not constructive right now!_

_Dear god, how on earth am I going to get out of this seat?_

If he'd been more inclined to do things like drooling and gaping, he would have done so. As it was, he smirked at her, got to his feet and kissed her. Not too deeply; he didn't want to embarrass her. Or himself. It surprised him how easy it was to show affection in public; he'd have thought…well, actually he hadn't thought at all. Aaron Stone would have greeted his girlfriend like this, and so he did.

He turned to the rest of the men. "Gentlemen. It's been a pleasure. Day after tomorrow?" This to Boscoe.

The man nodded. "Yes. Same time, same place. Have a good one, man."

"Thanks." He put his arm around Lizzie's shoulder. She was wearing a short, tight taupe leather jacket zipped almost all the way down. Her breasts bulged up from the v of her neckline like modest grapefruits. There was nothing wrong with her breasts, he knew from first hand experience, but they weren't that large. _Well, I guess you don't want to wear a push-up bra when you're shooting criminals. _He only wished having them stare him in the face didn't affect him so much. It was all he could do not to toss her into the bathroom and…_Focus._ It was kind of hard.

"Nice getup," he said, as he led her out of the club. Dawn stretched her golden fingers out over the parking lot, making him hunt for his Raybans. "Why are you here?"

Lizzie shrugged. The movement did interesting things with her grapefruits. "Cooper's having kittens and you hadn't called me. I wasn't sure you'd be able to leave without, you know. Incentive." She smiled. "Red thought that providing Nicky with a face would enhance her credibility, and by that, yours, and I thought it would be a good idea to show myself to the other guys, so they know who I am. That way I can contact you when we have information you need, without alerting the other guys."

Ressler nodded. "So do you have any information?"

"No. I'm just showing my nose."

"Oh. Great, now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Nicky is Stone's girlfriend, or one of many. I sincerely doubt he's going to take her out for coffee and then wave her off." He glanced at her legs. "Especially if she makes a habit of walking around dressed like that."

Lizzie smirked. So her effort hadn't been in vain. Look at that, she could still pull off twenty without too much trouble. Not that she was wearing anything she wouldn't wear on holiday. Well, maybe she wouldn't wear the push-up. It was amazing how prudish colleagues could become if they only ever saw you in suits, black jeans and blouses. "What do you suggest, then? I came here by cab, by the way. I figured you wouldn't want to abandon your Harley. We could…" _have breakfast and then you need to tell me all about these men you've met, and what the hell you've been up to tonight._

"Wreck the bed?" Ressler interrupted hopefully. He shot her a lopsided smile. "That's what Stone would do."

"Is your room bugged?"

"I don't think so. Why would they? Boscoe's a wary piece of shit, but he isn't exactly a spy. I don't think anyone's followed me, but…you're right, I can't be certain."

"If this is indeed Blofeld, it may well be possible he'll take some extra precautions." She sighed. "And if that is the case…wrecking the bed may actually be a pretty good thing to do to keep up appearances."

_No pun intended_, she didn't add. So far, she thought appearances were kept up admirably. Resser was surprisingly convincing as a street thug. Maybe it was the clothes and the sunglasses more than anything, but he'd adopted some kind of rolling walk that was very different from his usual gait, and his way of talking was different as well. Still rather toneless, but that was just his standard manner of speaking. Something of a drawl, when he spoke—not an accent, but…different. She couldn't help but feel nervously excited by the whole role playing thing. Sure, Reddington had taken her along plenty of times, but most of those times she'd just sat and been herself, just answering to another name. This was something else, this was much more than simple pretence. That feeling intensified as she climbed behind Ressler on his Harley.

"Sweet wheels."

"Thanks. You've seen her before." He didn't put on a helmet, nor give her one; drug dealer girlfriends, she gathered, didn't wear helmets. She wrapped her arms around his waist, felt him flinch.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, and kicked the motor into action.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, people! If there are things you desperately want to see in this fic, be sure to tell me, because if I can, I'll put them in.

This chapter contains sex. Just so you know

There was something about sitting on the back of a motorcycle, with the big machine growling between your legs, your butt in the air and your chest plastered against the back of the one driving that brought out a woman's inner slut, Lizzie discovered. She didn't consider herself to be particularly slutty, usually. Liz Keen, 'sir' to her colleagues—before the Post Office, that was—was a cool, professional woman. Her colleagues had never seen her like this, or they wouldn't have ever called her 'sir', not with her breasts squashed against Ressler's leather jacket and half of her ass hanging out of her hotpants because of the position of the backseat.

Part of her wanted to shove Ressler off the bike and take his place in the saddle, but she didn't know how to drive a motorcycle, much less a Harley, and none of her boyfriends had ever had one. A Harley, and the Dyna in particular, was the closest anyone could come to riding a feline dinosaur. It was phallic as hell and she could understand why men felt the need to do macho things when they were riding one. After all, no self-respecting man would, if he valued his masculinity, take the Harley and drive up to the library, or fetch groceries. You didn't get a carton of milk when you took out the Harley for a spin; you got beer or hard liquor. You didn't buy vacuum cleaner bags, either; when you drove your Harley to Wallmart, you returned with a big claw hammer and a drill and six inch nails, and when you got back home you didn't put stuff in the fridge; no, you went into the yard and took off your shirt and started ripping things up with your big new hammer, and then building things up from scrap. Because that was the manly thing to do.

Lizzie shook her head to clear it from these odd thoughts. _I need to get my motor driver's licence. I need to have this, too._

For now, she made do with being a passenger.

Ressler stopped at a motel at the outskirts of the city, got off his bike and rather gallantly helped her off his machine when the seat made her slide forward and land belly-down on the saddle.

"Christ, Keen, don't hump my ride," he said, grinning. "It's sexy enough without you slithering all over it."

"Sexy, huh?" she asked. The chauvinist pig. But he grinned even wider, and he did that rarely enough, so she just sighed and grinned back.

The hotel room was nondescript but spacious and clean, with a large bed and enough space to sit as well as sleep. Quickly, her eyes scanned the walls and the electrics. No overt places to place a camera, but more than enough places to hide a microphone. After letting her in, Ressler closed the door behind him, locked it and leaned against it.

"Welcome to my humble abode, Nicky."

She returned his smirk. "You've had nicer rooms." Nicky was a bit of a spoilt brat, she'd decided.

Ressler raised an eyebrow. "I can do everything I want here—besides, I'm not here for the room."

"I know. I'm wasting your precious time. But I…" she conversationally placed a hand on his chest and frowned as he twitched at the contact. "…missed you," she continued without missing a beat. "You really should've called right after you got off that plane." What was wrong with the man? Was he high again? Surely that couldn't be the intention. She plucked the Raybans from his nose—nope, pupils nice and large, but shrinking quickly in the light.

"I think I can file you in for a couple of hours," Ressler said, a little hoarsely, and inhaled sharply when she drew her fingers down his torso. She leaned forward to whisper, "What the hell is wrong with you _this_ time?" in his ear, but as she had to press up against him to reach his ear, what was wrong became perfectly clear. "Huh," she said, grinning despite herself. "You ARE happy to see me, baby."

"Never said I wasn't," Ressler said. "Wait," he added, but she'd already undone the buttons on his jeans and slid her hand inside. He hissed quietly.

_Jeez, that must be uncomfortable, _Lizzie thought, sliding her fingers up and down his fully extended cock. Ressler stopped her by covering his own crotch, and her hand inside his pants, with his hand.

"Damn you, woman," he said with admirable control, although she could hear a quiver in his voice, "at least let me take off my boots, will ya?" he neatly plucked her hand out of his jeans and smacked her on the butt. "Take off your rags, I'll be with you in a second."

Lizzie resolved to make him scream, Aaron Stone or not.

She didn't think it would take much doing, especially not after she took her time to slooowly pull the lace panties off. She didn't think she'd ever seen the man this hard before when he slid next to her beneath the covers of the king-sized bed. _His bed's bigger than mine. Not fair. _The skin of his body felt hot beneath her touch, even though his face was cool. He smelled strange, like smoky leather, gunpowder and sweat, and something else, but it was not unpleasant.

"Have you been using again?" she breathed, watching him squirm at the touch of her fingers. He was trying to push her onto her back, but she was having none of that.

"No. Well, no, not today, yesterday."

"Do you want me to suck you off?"

He froze and stared at her, eyes wide, and she felt a wicked sense of satisfaction. He thought the idea of being bugged would put her off? She'd lived knowing that her entire life, including her sex life with the stranger she knew as Tom, was being recorded for several weeks. Below his cover, Ressler was still Ressler, with whom she actually enjoyed sleeping. No one would connect Nicky Coxx with Elizabeth Keen, and Nicky Coxx was a tramp. "Huh, baby? Do you want me to take your cock in my mouth and swallow you down till your balls hit my chin?"

"Will you quit that!" Ressler hissed, scandalized; and gasped, loudly, as she straddled him in one sinuous movement.

Lizzie gave an experimental wiggle, and he arched up helplessly. She took hold of his wrists and pulled them up until they lay on both sides of his head. "Quit what, babe? Aren't you enjoying this? Isn't this nice and slick and smooth?" She rocked forward, and he groaned and wrestled his arms free to grab her hips, holding her immobile.

"If you move another inch, I'm going to come…so hard," he whispered, so she immediately rolled her hips, just a little, perhaps two inches. She couldn't help it; he never said things like this, and it made her want to test him.

His eyes closed and he thrust up with a strangled sound, sliding his hands up from her sides to rest on her breasts.

Lizzie had a sudden mad fantasy about doing this on the Harley. "Come on, then," she whispered, setting a pace that was definitely more than an inch with each rocking sway, "Come on, baby, don't hold back…" He was doing just that, she knew, trying desperately to not lose it completely because the man was a secret control freak but that, she decided, was a losing battle. She rose on her knees until he slid almost entirely out of her and then slammed back down and "Oh…Christ…fuck!" Ressler howled, coming so hard he almost threw her off. His eyes rolled up and his hands dropped, limply, onto his heaving chest.

Lizzie, barely breathing faster, leaned forward. She chuckled. "Needed that, did you?" He did not reply, and she tapped his cheek with one finger. "What's that now, Aaron? Did I break you?"

His eyelids twitched, so did his cock inside of her. Huh. He was still hard. Little change, in fact. What enhanced sexual endurance, she tried to remember. Was that meth or cocaine? He wasn't half bad at any time, but this wasn't normal. Briefly, she wondered if she should be worried, but decided there would be enough time for that if he was still erect in another thirty minutes. She rotated her pelvis, tensing and relaxing her internal muscles and making him curse again. He put his hands on her thighs, muttering, "Wait, keep still, give me a moment, I'm not…"

"I don't think so, honey," she drawled, rocking gently. "I'm gonna ride that hard pole of yours till you scream my name at the top of your lungs." Look at that, he liked that, didn't he, a bit of dirty sex talk. The eyes opening up to glare at her, disbelieving, were dilated with arousal. "I'm going to _unwind_ you, baby, remind you why you should have called me right when you got back here."

Ressler snorted. "Oh, please, don't start with…" His breath hitched as she sharply tilted her hips, and she interrupted, "Please, yeah, that sounds like something I want to hear you say. Do you want me to make you beg, Aaron? Do you want that?"

She saw his face cloud over even before he grabbed her by the waist and flopped her over, depositing her on her back—_Aaron Stone will not let his girlfriend lead him around by the balls._ Well, figuratively, then, because he managed this little feat without separating himself from her. She waited for a razor-sharp retort, and she could see Ressler struggling to make one…but witty remarks just weren't his thing, and in the end he just looked frustrated and stopped her from talking by covering her mouth with his own.

_Poor Donnie. He's so tough with his fake tattoos and his Altaïr walk, but inside, he's still the same old overly sensible slow straight Ressler, and no matter how much he wants to, he'll never be someone else._

He was, however, still more than capable to make her whimper with pleasure, and if his frustration made him more heavy-handed than usual, well, she could take that and more. He never hurt her. And even if he came again within a couple of minutes, it wasn't before he had made her cry out and tear at his back with her fingernails as she climaxed—a strange kind of revenge, she had to admit, and one she welcomed and secretly hoped he might take on her again. She whispered this in his ear as he collapsed next to her, but he just grunted in disgust and fell asleep.

Well, he was male, after all.

Lizzie took the opportunity to wash up and put on her underwear again. She gazed at herself in the mirror and couldn't repress a mocking smile at the push-up bra and the lacy panties. They looked nice on her, even if the bra felt restricting—nice, and very much unlike her. She wondered whether she should steal Aaron Stone's cash, just to stay in character, but then decided that while Nicky dressed and acted like a tart, she wasn't a thief and probably really loved the man.

When she came back into the room, Ressler was still out, lying curled up on his side, face hidden in the crook of his bent arms. The tattoos on his arm and back looked strange on him, or rather, without his familiar face visible, his body looked like a stranger's and made her suddenly nervous.

_This isn't a game, _she realized. _What he's doing is not without risk, and I'm not sure…_Her train of thought ground to a halt as she suddenly noticed a large, dark mark beneath the phoenix of his tattoo. It wasn't all that noticeable amidst all the whirls and swirls, but when she looked more closely, she noticed that he had a purplish-black bruise the size of her hand spread over his lower arm. _Jesus. What's he been up to?_ She shook his shoulder, lifted one arm to peer at his face when he didn't respond. "R-" she coughed. "Aaron. Wake up. Come on, wake up, this is no fun, I didn't come all the way over here to watch you sleep. Wake up."

He muttered something, tried to burrow deeper into his elbow, but she wouldn't let him. "Come on, wakey wakey. I'm hungry, and you promised me pancakes."

"Pancakes?" Ressler repeated sluggishly. It took several seconds before his eyes focused, and almost immediately he closed them again with a groan. "Can't you just let me sleep?"

That made her frown. Ressler never needed much sleep. Even if he'd been up all night, he shouldn't be this lethargic. "No. I can get you coffee, though."

"Sounds great," he said, and promptly fell asleep again.

Lizzie dressed quickly, took his key from his jeans pocket and made her way to the cafeteria around the corner. She ordered a cappuccino and a double espresso with extra sugar. It would have been better if she had dragged him out here in person so she could grill him on what he'd been doing—even better, she thought guiltily, if she'd done that _before_ diving into bed with him.

_I'm an idiot, and I'm getting my priorities mixed up beyond FUBAR. And he, too. What the hell were we thinking, hitting it like a pair of…no, I'm not going there, not now. We're on a fricking mission, not at a theme park._ She received her cups and walked back slowly, careful not to spill foam over the edge. _This whole thing with Ressler is getting really…weird. Unprofessional. Maybe we should put an end to it._ She was appalled at the flip her stomach did at that thought. _It's just sex. It means nothing. Having a relationship, that would be bad, but this…this is just sex, and we shouldn't do it during missions._

_But this was in character. In case the room was bugged._

_We could've gone to my place instead._

_Damn it._

As she returned to Ressler's room, she found that the door had fallen into the lock and that she couldn't reach the key in her pocket with her hands full. She kicked at it for a good thirty seconds before Ressler opened it for her. He looked punch-drunk; and what was more, was still totally naked.

Lizzie shoved the door closed behind her with her foot, wobbling on her high wedges, and placed the carton cups on the desk. "You answer the door without wearing pants more often?" she asked pointedly. At least he wasn't hard anymore; now that would've been awkward.

"Huh? Oh. Sorry." He rubbed his face and reached out for the coffee.

She deftly picked it up again and took a step to the side. "It's your naked butt on display, _Aaron_. Why don't you go and have a shower, so we can go and drink it _outside_?"

"It'll be cold by then," he said slowly, and she seriously deliberated slapping him to wake him up. Dear god, but the man was tiresome this way.

"Not if you make it a short one. Oh come on, move it! We need to talk." She put the cup down and swatted at his ass. Thank god, that drew the familiar scowl out of him. Annoyed, he walked into the bathroom, slammed the door and started the shower. Lizzie sipped her cappuccino. It really was quite hot. Five minutes later he walked out again, skin red and a bit more awake, by the looks of it, but still without clothes.

"You really like walking around naked, don't you?" she couldn't help asking when he made a bee-line to his duffel bag and started pulling out clean clothes.

"Shut up," he said, and she smiled into her coffee.

"I didn't know you were affected by the post-coital afterglow this much. If I'd known I'd have let you sleep a couple of hours before coming to see you."

"Shut up." It took him fifteen seconds to get dressed. He stomped into his combat boots, pushed the laces into the tops and snatched his cup from the desk and took a big gulp.

"You don't like me," Lizzie pouted. He ignored her, so she put the most annoying whine into her voice she could manage, and wheedled, "You do love me, do you? Aaron?"

The look he shot her was a thing of pure beauty. She wished she'd had her phone ready so she could have taken a picture of it.

"You wanted to go for a walk?" Ressler asked, voice low and so flat it almost lacked enough inflection to be considered a question. He pocketed his keys and wallet, and gestured at the open door. "Let's go."

Lizzie unfolded her legs and followed him, unsuccessfully trying to hide her grin.

As it was still quite early, about eight or so, it was still rather quiet, although the road was busy with traffic. Ressler set off at a brisk pace to the diner where Lizzie had got her coffee, but slowed down once they were 'out of earshot' of his room.

"Could you never do that again?"

"Do what?" Lizzie asked innocently.

"The _talking_."

"You didn't like my dirty talk? But it got you all hot and bothered."

His mouth quirked. "Trust me, I was all hot and bothered before you opened your mouth. I'm serious, don't do that again."

"You liked it. I could tell."

"It was fucking embarrassing. Especially if people might be listening."

"Ah, so it's the possible voyeurism that embarrasses you. That, and the fact that you definitely did like me talking smut."

"I didn't."

"'Aaron', you are the first person I know the term 'coming your brains out' literally applies to. I think you passed out after the first time. You actually had me worried for a bit there."

"And your reaction to me coming my brains out and worrying over me is trying out voice kink so I can come my brains out twice. Huh." He gingerly touched his tattooed arm. "I'll hold you responsible for any brain damage I've contracted."

Lizzie laughed. She gestured at a wooden bench and picnic table next to the parking lot of the motel. "Sit over there? It's in the sun."

"Are you cold?" He shot another look at her bare legs, a faintly vindictive smile curving his lips. "October can be deceptively cold sometimes."

"Not when I'm sitting in the sun," she returned irritably. _The sacrifices I have to bring to become a convincing undercover persona…_

Ressler sat down on the table, with his feet on the bench, and she joined him, huddling close to him because that way no one could overhear them and not because her legs were cold.

"So," she said, taking another sip of coffee. "What happened yesterday?"

"Oh, Christ. Yeah." He rubbed his face, making his stubble rasp.

"Was it bad? Did you…There was an attack in the slums. East side. Was that you?"

"Yup," Ressler drawled with a tired snort. "That was us. Damn. Was it on the news?"

"Yes."

"Fuck." He faced her, a somewhat anxious expression on his face. "How many casualties?"

"Six, I think. Over twenty wounded. And a man missing, some crime lord…"

"James Butler Rainfield."

"That's the one."

"He was the reason we were there." He sighed, finished his coffee and gave her a step by step report of what had gone down the night before.

Lizzie noted down the names of Boscoe's Chosen in her phone and looked up sharply when Ressler mentioned Jamie Boscoe. "A child? Boscoe's child was in there?!"

"Yes."

"That can't be a coincidence."

"No."

"So what do you think, is Boscoe…what is his position in this whole scheme? Could he be a victim?"

"No. I don't think so. Actually, I think that last night was his own test. His little loyalty test. Get the right people, get paid, and save your son at the same time. Or get the wrong people and do get paid but lose your son."

"If he willingly gave up his son to be part of this…"

"I don't think it was willing," Ressler said. "He was obviously broken up over the kid being in Skinny's hands. But I agree, it's too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence at all."

"Hmm. I'll see what I can find out about Rainfield. You got him, I guess? Or is he dead already?"

"We got him. I shot him before he could hurt the kid, and Boscoe put him somewhere secure. I don't think he killed him. Not yet in any case. If anyone kidnapped my kid and put a gun against his head, I wouldn't kill him anytime soon, either."

She blinked at that. "Let's keep that off the record, shall we?"

"If I were a drug dealer instead of a government agent," Ressler clarified, rolling his eyes.

"I'd like to have a talk with Rainfield," Lizzie murmured. "About why he took Boscoe's son. If it was his own idea, or whether someone played the child into his hands."

"That might be constructive, yeah," Ressler said slowly. He rubbed at his eyes again.

"I thought meth made you hyper," Lizzie said, somewhat accusatorily.

"Yeah, well, it's run its course, I guess. I had a busy night."

"Yeah, six dead, that's pretty busy."

"For fuck's sake," he hissed, "I tried to keep the number of casualties down!"

"Yes? And did it work?"

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe. It could have been worse. Maybe."

"Did you shoot anyone?"

"Just Skinny. In the arm. No; I probably hit a couple of guys in the leg. I didn't kill anyone."

"Good for you." She really hoped so, because if the police traced any lethal bullets back to Aaron Stone's gun, this might become very ugly indeed. But he was aware of that, too. She was silent for a moment. "What happened to your arm?"

"This?" he held up the appendage in question. The huge contusion was a lot clearer in bright daylight. A strange kind of grimacing smile twisted his mouth. "That was a vacuum cleaner hose."

"Say what?"

"A vacuum cleaner hose. God, I'm not proud of myself."

"So, you were attacked by a criminal vacuum cleaner? And it got the better of you?"

Humour wasn't Ressler's strongest part, and it seemed to be sorely lacking this morning. "No. There was this girl…I walked in on them. Just a couple of kids. I was trying to find out where Rainfield was holed up, but this girl, sixteen, maybe seventeen years old, hit me with a vacuum cleaner hose. She was protecting her sister and a couple of children." He snorted, then sighed. "Stupid kid; I almost shot her."

"Almost?" Lizzie knew what things could be like when you were caught up in a chase, or a fight.

"What do you think I am? Of course I didn't shoot her, I'm trained better than that!"

"What about the others? This…Shuo. You mention him more often than the rest."

"That's because he's the scariest motherfucker I've seen in a long time," Ressler said, only Ressler never spoke like that, so maybe Aaron Stone was surfacing a little. He told her about Shuo and his light machine gun and his knife, about the fact that he resembled a wax statue (which made her smile a little, because somehow she doubted Ressler would have mentioned another man's lack of expression if he hadn't known she thought his own face was like a mask). Then he blinked tiredly against the sun and told her that he needed more coffee if he were to continue.

"Good," Lizzie said. "I need breakfast. I skipped mine to pick you up." _Hurr, durr, durr_. "Aren't you hungry?"

"No."

"Are you sick?"

He let himself slide from the table. "No, just tired."

"Drugs will do that to you," she lectured, and he snorted.

"Give me a break."

She did, and they walked the rest of the way to the diner. It was pretty crowed by now, which suited them both just fine. There was safety and anonymity in a crowd. A family of three: a mom, a dad, and a rebellious-looking teenage daughter with a piercing in her eyebrow were finishing breakfast at a table tucked away in a corner. They left quickly when Ressler walked up to their table, leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, and glared at them.

"Subtle," Lizzie said, piling up their dishes.

"Innit?" he asked, sprawling into a chair.

Lizzie cleared her throat. "Uh, you can drop the act, now, you know. No one's listening."

"What act?"

Before she could answer, a waitress came by to take their order, and she ordered pancakes and fresh orange juice; Ressler just wanted coffee. "Look," he said, when the waitress had turned her back, "this is hard enough for me without switching back and forth between personas. Humour me."

"Uh, ok."

"So that's Shuo. Then there's Claus Sacher, Santa Claus. He's a mean fuck as well, raping bastard—I think he might have assaulted a woman yesterday. There's track marks all over his face and arms. Maybe you should try to find out whether there was a woman violated, yesterday, and see if she can be made to press charges. That would take Claus out of my hair and into prison."

"Nice pals."

He shot her a look, and she raised her hands in submission. She wasn't quite sure what was wrong with him, but he…not exactly scared her, but alarmed her a little. She knew him as a very calm, very stable person, but now she had the idea he could lash out at any moment. Perhaps she was wrong, but…maybe Ressler was taking impersonating Aaron Stone a little bit too serious.

"Right," she said, changing the subject, if only a little. "Who's next? Solomon White? What are your thoughts on him?"

"Psychopath. Not higher-functioning, either. I couldn't place his accent, but it was something Northern, Maine, perhaps. I have no idea what his background is, he wouldn't say much about it."

"Is there any way we can arrest him for last night?"

"Some of the blood at the scene will be his." He was quiet while Lizzie breakfast was placed on the table and he was given his much-desired coffee. "The man was like an ox, he just wouldn't go down. I hit him, you know; I punched him in the face, but it only distracted him."

"Why'd you punch him?"

"Because he was shooting an Uzi in a nine-by-nine apartment. And because he annoyed me." He took a long drink of coffee. A look of confusion passed over his face. "Jesus."

"What is it?"

"I just…" He shook his head. "Nothing. Just…Weird sense of displacement." He drank more coffee. "I don't think Solomon will be a threat to me. Shuo, yes, and Claus, definitely, but not Solomon; he's too unhinged, he won't make it, not if Boscoe has a brain in his skull. And the last guy, Bani…He was hurt pretty badly during the raid."

"How bad?" Lizzie asked.

Ressler shrugged. "Someone shot him in the arm with a shotgun. It wasn't pretty. Then again, morphine can work miracles."  
"Do you know his full name?"

"No, just Bani. I think he's from Philadephia."

"I'll see what I can find out." She carefully cut one of her pancakes into four pieces and put one quarter into her mouth. "Hey. I think Cooper's finally found a new member for our team."

"Yeah?"

"He made me take a look at her file."

"Her? Another woman?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Eh, yes? What's wrong with female agents?"

He smirked. "Nothing! Nothing. Wait, is she that dark-haired girl? I think I might've seen her yesterday; she was in a meeting with Cooper."

"Her name is Louanne Plant. And she's hardly a girl; she about your age." She ate another quarter of maple syrupy goodness.

"Oh, right, _my_ age. She's positively ancient then." Ressler snorted. "Louanne Plant…I know that name. But Plant's CIA."

"Not anymore."

"Meera was CIA too, before she joined us. I hope we're not turning into a CIA leftovers bin."

Lizzie chuckled. "I doubt it. And we don't know if she'll actually make it to the team."

"Yeah," Ressler said sourly. "A certain person might object to her joining the task force and then we're back to square one." He eyed her plate as she pushed it away from her. She had only eaten two of the four pancakes.

"Go on," she said, "finish it. You know you want to."

"Did you have to paint syrup smiley faces on them?" he wanted to know.

"Yes. You obviously need sugar."

"What I need," he said, pulling the plate towards him with a shrug and making short work of the pancakes in three bites, "is eight hours of sleep."

"And the location where Boscoe's keeping Rainfield."

"That, too," Ressler agreed. "I'll look into it."


	7. Chapter 7

Ressler dropped Lizzie off at her apartment, keeping the engine rolling while she crabbed off this time. "Let's have dinner tonight," he proposed. "You can share what you've found with me, and my brain will be working again."

"Sure."

"Pick you up at seven?"

Lizzie caressed the Harley's gleaming gas tank. "With your big fat masculine overcompensating machine?"

Ressler barked a laugh. "Yes," he smirked, with a look at her over the tops of his sunglasses, "with my big fat masculine machine. Wouldn't call it overcompensating, though. It's just comfortable."

"You are pretty confident about your manhood, aren't you?"

"You were the one who used the words 'hard pole', if I recall correctly." Ressler shot back. "You don't say that when you actually mean 'gherkin', or something."

Lizzie sighed. "You're not supposed to repeat dirty talk afterwards. It doesn't work that way."

"It doesn't work at all," Ressler said stubbornly. He pushed his Raybans up on his nose and made the bike's engine growl. "See you tonight."

He drove off, and Lizzie entered the flat and took the elevator up to her floor. The wedges were pretty elegant, but they'd given her blisters on both heels and one toe, so she was happy to take them off. _Ressler got hit by a girl. I got maimed by my undercover shoes,_ she thought, applying band aids. While she was de-undercovering, she also took off the hotpants and the push-up bra and dressed in her own, far more sensible clothes.

Booting up her laptop, she accessed the Quantico server and logged in. Aram had configured the thing to save her work every twenty seconds on the Quantico server. If she turned the laptop off, or put it on standby, or removed the power source, it automatically closed her documents and wiped all internet history. Logging in again required a long and complicated password, which she could only remember because she could sing it to the tune of Love Come Home. It was as safe as it was going to get while still giving her the opportunity to work without joining Cooper in the temp Post Office down at the PD, and Lizzie wondered if these safety measures were truly necessary.

She called Cooper on her own cell phone to tell him that Ressler had given her the names of Boscoe's Chosen, and that she wanted to find out who they were and what connections they could possibly have to Blofeld. "Also," she added, "Boscoe has James Rainfield, also known as Skinny. Getting him was one of the main objectives of yesterday's…test. Rainfield had kidnapped Boscoe's three year old son."

"And the child?"

"Safely recovered. I'm just wondering who of the two was the added bonus: the child, or Rainfield."

"What do you mean?" Cooper asked.

"Well," Lizzie said, ordering her thoughts, "When Ressler told me about this, we both concluded that Boscoe's child being kidnapped right before the shipment comes in, couldn't be coincidental. But the question is, what does he want with Rainfield? Revenge for his son? Then why put the retrieval of the boy as optional?"

"The kind of men he's gathering around him might not feel inclined to rescue a child," Cooper proposed.

"Yes, but what if it's Blofeld who wants Skinny, and not Boscoe?"

"I see what you mean," Cooper said. "Find him."

"Yes sir. I'm planning to have a good long look at Boscoe and his associates as well. Oh, and sir? Were any of the victims of the East slum attack raped? Sacher sported scratch marks on his person, and he's a convicted rapist."

"I'll forward the police report," her boss promised. "Ressler wasn't injured during the assault?"

"No, sir." She wished she could spare him the embarrassment of the vacuum cleaner hose attack, but leaving it out of her report might harm him later, so she only said, "He did get hit on the arm by a girl—she got a good look at him, if I'm correct, but he didn't hurt her. She may be able to describe him to the police, though." _May have to take that out. We don't want Ressler to get arrested before we've caught Blofeld_. She didn't say it, and neither did Cooper, but she could almost hear him nod through the telephone.

"Noted. Did he kill anyone?"

"No sir. Not directly, in any case, but he did fire his pistol and used it to defend himself."

Cooper grunted. "You laid eyes on the other men?"

"Yes sir. On all but one, who was injured during the attack. No, wait, Xian Shuo wasn't there, either. I picked Ressler up at the Lion's Den this morning. The men seemed comfortable with him, so I'd say that so far, infiltration has been successful."

"Where is he now?"

"Back at the motel, sleeping. I'll show him my report and see if he has anything to add to it this evening."

Cooper made a confirmative noise. "Good work. Get Ressler up to date this evening, and let me know what you decide. The Baltimore Police isn't all that happy to have us around, and this calls for some delicacy."

Lizzie smiled. No police force was ever happy to have the FBI stick their noses into their business. "Yes sir."

"Keep in touch," Cooper ended the conversation, and hung up.

After he'd dropped Lizzie off at her flat, Ressler drove back linea recta to his motel, undressed, and crawled beneath the covers. He'd drunk enough coffee to toss and turn for half an hour, and the daylight outside and the fact that he'd been active and awake for a while made it harder to fall asleep, but he was so tired he was willing to make the effort, and in the end he slept for about six hours before his body decided it had done enough resting while the sun was shining. That left him with another five hours of daylight, and because he had no idea how he could find out about possible places Boscoe could be holding Skinny, not without acting horribly suspicious or accessing the database, he called Lizzie again and asked her if she had found anything.

"As a matter of fact," Lizzie said, "I have." He waited while she called up her files. "Ok, here it is. David Boscoe's current address is in Jonestown, which by the looks of it has plenty of space to hide someone, but he also owns a garage on Federal street. And that would be a workplace, fix-your-motorcycle kind of garage, not just a place to store things. That's only three blocks away from where you picked up Rainfield yesterday. And apart from that, he pays rent for a small flat on Monument street. That's a stone's throw away from the Lion's Den."

"Does he have a wife? If I remember correctly he was divorced."

"As far as the law is concerned, he is," Lizzie confirmed. "What's more, Jamie Boscoe isn't Jamie Boscoe, but Jamie Yevgenieva."

That was a surprise indeed. "He hasn't recognized the child? Who's the mother?"

Lizzie typed something on her laptop. "Anasenko Yevgenieva. Apparently the boy's name should become his dad's and not his mother's, or get a different suffix because it's a boy, but that's not the way our registry works, so the boy's officially James Gregor Yevgenieva."

"How'd you find her, if she hasn't registered the boy as Boscoe's?" He truly was impressed. With everything that had happened, it was sometimes easy to forget that Liz Keen actually was a pretty good agent. _And that is horribly sexist of me, _Ressler thought_. She's earned her salt. The fact that she makes a truly convincing tart shouldn't distract from the fact that she's a very good profiler._

Lizzie, blissfully unaware of his antifeminist thoughts, spoke her next words with audible satisfaction. "I did some digging into Rainfield, Skinny's, contacts. Anasenko Yevgenieva used to be one of his. She's been arrested twice. For prostitution. Skinny was a pimp, Ressler. He climbed up from prostitution to drug dealing."

"Boscoe mentioned Skinny used to be an associate of his."  
"Then my guess is that Boscoe fell in love with Anasenko, or got her pregnant, and helped Skinny into the drug trafficking business in return for Anasenko's freedom." She paused. "Unless the boy was fathered by Rainfield…"

"No," Ressler said. "Skinny is coloured. The boy was as white as can be. Is the woman blonde?"

"Almost albino. Typical Slavic girl: white-blonde hair, pale skin, big blue eyes." She typed something, then sucked in air between her teeth. "And Rainfield beat her. Or her customers did. There's a picture of her here…It's in the police files but she never pressed charges."

"When did that happen?"

"Five years ago." She paused. "She was only seventeen at the time. She must just have got here, then; the file mentions she needed a translator."

"Probably Skinny, then," Ressler thought. "You don't press charges against your sole source of income." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Despite the rest, he still felt slow and heavy, but that might be after effects of alcohol as well.

"What," Lizzie said, "if she's Blofeld?"

"Why would she be Blofeld?" Ressler asked in return. "I thought Reddington said Blofeld was a man."

"They never met. And wasn't Blofeld Russian?"

"Polish."

"Polish? Are you sure? Didn't James Bond always fight against the Russians?"

Ressler shook his head. "Blofeld was definitely Polish, or half-Polish, half something else. I grew up with these books and movies; I know. But even if he was Russian, it seems a bit far fetched to see someone as a suspect simply because the nationality fits the name."

"We've seen stranger things," Lizzie said.

Ressler frowned a little, irritation at her hare-brained ideas seeping into his voice. "True," he said patiently. "But somehow I don't see a Russian whore who got beat up by trash like Skinny being the leading force behind one of the biggest hidden crime cartels in America."

Liz sighed. "No. Still, I might look her up. See if I can bump into her. She may not be a crime lord, but if Boscoe loves her, she might keep Rainfield in her basement to cut off bits and pieces of him in revenge. Which, by the way, is the basement of the flat on Boscoe's name."

"Ok. I'll check the garage. Can you give me the address again?"

She did. "Be careful," she added. "We can't have Boscoe get suspicious of you."

_I'll don my fake moustache and Yankee baseball cap, _Ressler thought, but did not say; instead he just grunted and hung up.

When he typed in the address and name of the garage—4Drives Motor Repairs—into his phone's GPS, he saw that it was only a couple of blocks away, which surprised him, because he'd thought they'd been driving the trucks for ages to get there, or at least to the East side, yesterday. Then again, the Lion's Den was about twenty minutes in the opposite direction, and thirty to forty minutes could seem to last a long time. Before he drove off, he got a screwdriver from the storage compartment of his Harley, murmured an apology to the beautiful bike and smashed the screwdriver against its headlight. The glass chipped, and an opaque spot appeared around a tiny hole, hair-thin cracks running out like cobweb.

Ressler tucked the screwdriver away, got onto the bike and headed for the 4Drives Motor Repairs.

At first sight, he didn't see anyone he knew at the garage. It consisted of an in-door workshop, with a number of work benches and several pallet racks stocked with spare parts of all kinds of motorcycle brands; and next to it a space almost as large that could be covered with tarpaulin, but which was now in the open air, where a couple of men were tinkering with a number of bikes. Only one of the men looked like he might be an employee of the garage; the others appeared to be just disassembling and cleaning their bike for the hell of it, some of them drinking beer as they were doing so.

Ressler greeted them as he parked the Dyna next to a brutal Yamaha Stryker, and was greeted in return. _Instant bonding among bike owners_, he reflected with an inner smile. He should get one of his own and broaden his non-existence social circles.

"That is one nice bike," Ressler said to the man with the Stryker, and he didn't need to lie. Its bright colours: red and dark blue, with a smattering of slightly lighter stars on the front fender were a bit garish to his taste, but the whole of it still painted a beautiful picture. "Sprayed her yourself?"

The owner, a man in his late twenties, nodded proudly. His coveralls were covered in smears of paint and a fine spray of blue coated half of his face. In his hand he held an airbrush. "Yeah. Cost me a month, but it's worth it. I used to have these flames, y'know, and they were pretty awesome, but everybody has flames, so I figured, let's go with the flag for a change." He gestured to Ressler's bike. "That a Dyna Glide? My brother used to have one. I'm a Yamaha man now, but I still love that sound."

Ressler acknowledged that yes, he had a Dyna, and explained that his baby was injured.

"Ouch," the Yamaha man said, with a look at the light. "That's a nasty little scrape. But I'm sure they can fix it, maybe even without replacing the entire glass—or the light and cover; some places do that. Just go inside; I'm sure one of the boys can help you." He went back to his spray job, and Ressler sauntered into the workshop.

Two motorcycles stood on raised platforms, one upside down, the other one stripped down to the frame. Both had employees attending to them; a third man lounged behind a desk in the far corner, feet on the desk, going through the closing sentences of a conversation on the phone.

Excellent.

Ressler made a slow tour of the facility, taking note of a closed door at the back of the building—but he didn't think this workshop a likely place to store a severely wounded criminal. It was far too public. Unless he was bound and gagged, there was no way Skinny could be kept here.

Even as he was contemplating the door, another man opened it and came into the workshop. He took no particular care to the door's swing, and in the room behind him, Ressler could only see a table littered with foam coffee cups and a couple of chairs. The moment he saw Ressler, his handsome face split in a welcoming smile.

"Stone! What brings you here?"

Despite an ugly scrape on his forehead, shadowed eyes and an edge of bandage showing beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt, Clean biker, or Pretty Jack, looked relatively fresh and sincerely pleased to see Ressler. His hair was pulled back in a short pony tail and he had grease on the left side of his nose.

"Jack. Didn't know you worked here." Now he thought about it, Jack might have mentioned he worked at a motor service. He just hadn't realised it was this place.

"Yup. Four days a week. Are you here to see Boscoe? I don't think he's in, today."

"Boscoe works here as well?"

"Yeah, man! This place is his! Didn't you know?"

_Not me. I'm oblivious. Look at my face, I know nothing. _He shook his head, smiling. "Hell, no. I just damaged my front light and this was the closest repair shop I could find."

"Ah," said Jack. "Well, let's have a look at it, then, shall we?" He grinned. "If it ain't too much work, I'll put it on the house. As far as I get it, the little guy's safe return's mainly thanks to you, so…"

"Is that where he is?" Ressler asked. "Boscoe? With Jamie? I was feeling so sorry for that poor kid. You got any children yourself?"

Jack shook his head. They had already cleared the building, and Ressler didn't want to ask too many questions in front of other people. "Nah. Nadine's still in high school." He laughed. "Technically, I'm not even allowed to bang her, if you know what I mean."

_No_, Ressler thought sternly. _You're not, and yes I do know what you mean_. Still, Jack couldn't be much older than twenty or twenty-one, and the girl had been lovely.

"I'm not sure we're children material," Jack happily chatted on. "Not now, in any case. And Nadine was thinking about studying law—law! But Jamie's cool; he's a cute little guy."

"Does he live with Boscoe?"

"Nah, with his mom. But she sometimes drops him off here, if she has to go to…if she has to work." He cleared his throat. "He loves the spare tyres."

"They're not together?"

Jack's smile dimmed just a tiny bit, telling Ressler that he'd about reached the line between 'comfortable facts' and 'private gossip'. "No."

"I sometimes wonder," Ressler said smoothly—as far as he was capable of smooth, "if I have any kids."

Jack's face relaxed again. "They are kinda hard to misplace, man."

"Not if you leave before they start showing." He cleared his throat, too, suddenly uncomfortable even pretending to be that kind of man, and halted in front of his Harley. The man with the Yamaha was busily painting stars on his charging system. Jack gave him a silent thumbs up before kneeling down in front of Ressler's headlight.

"Ah. Yeah, I see what you mean. Was it a pebble or something? I hate it when that happens." He gently tapped the glass. "I can fix this, though. The cracks haven't spread very far, so I can just cut a little circle out of the glass and put a new bit in. You'll see it, but only if you look at it up close, and it saves you fifty bucks."

Ressler told him to do his worst, and took another stroll around, pretending to look at the motorcycles but checking out the garage instead. He wished he could just get a warrant and turn the place upside-down. This whole subterfuge thing went against everything he stood for. Things would be so much easier if he could just arrest all the bad guys and interrogate them until they spilled the beans…but that was not the way this mission worked. However, when Jack had finished his repairs, Ressler was reasonably sure that Skinny could not be hidden away on the premises. He hung around for another half hour, chatting amiably, but all that gained him was thirty minutes of pleasant but useless conversation. Finally, he climbed back onto his Harley and drove off.

While Ressler was doing his male bonding, Lizzie drove her rental car over to Monument street and parked in view of the flat Anasenko Yevgenieva lived in. It was situated in a nice neighbourhood; not exactly chic, but well-maintained and clean. She watched the front door for a quarter of an hour. Quite a few people went in and out, and after some hesitation, Lizzie twisted her hair into a pony tail, pulled it over her scalp and tugged a Yankee baseball cap she had found in Nicky's apartment onto her head, hiding her hair and most of her face. Then, she simply left her car and casually walked up to the door. It didn't take long before a few kids came out, and she slipped in after them. From the common entrance hall, it was easy to access the basement. All flats had their own cellar, conveniently marked with numbers corresponding with the house numbers. It only took her a couple of minutes to find Yevgenieva's storage room, but even before she started picking the lock, she knew she wasn't going to find any drug lords here. This place was too easily accessible to keep prisoners.

_But it might tell me something about Anasenko,_ Lizzie figured.

The lock was a simple one; she jiggled it open in little more than a minute. Inside, the cellar was disappointingly bare. It was only a small space, just eight by ten or something, and contained nothing but a couple of boxes, a battered suitcase and a step-ladder.

Lizzie closed the door behind her and started with the suitcase. It held an interesting combination of old winter clothes and bondage gear. Fascinating, but not terribly useful.

The first box was filled with folders holding letters from Immigration and other documents sent to prove that Miss Yevgenieva was well on her way becoming a United States citizen. Lizzie also found two certificates for English Language courses.

The second box contained toys and carefully stacked drawings— toys discarded by the boy, Jamie, Lizzie assumed, or perhaps a keepsake from Anasenko herself. She couldn't have been more than fifteen when she arrived in the States. The drawings were definitely a boy's: all cars and houses and footballs. The crude doodles made Lizzie swallow something bitter. A year ago she'd almost been a mom. The oldest of these paintings could have been her daughter's…_Yeah. Imagine what hold Tom would've had over me if we had adopted._

Resolutely, she put everything back and opened the last box.

_What do we have here? Rainfield's severed head? A birthday card with a return address from Blofeld?_

None of these things. More clothes, carefully folded; pants and dresses and a jacket or two. The box was only half full. _Things to send home, perhaps._

She sighed in frustration. Apart from the bondage gear, which she obviously didn't use anymore, or not often, in any case, Anasenko's basement was pretty boring. _I'd like to nose around in her apartment._ Breaking and entering someone's house, however, was something different than snooping around in their basement. Liz Keen hadn't become an FBI agent so she could go around trespassing. Besides, what if she was home?

_We can always issue a warrant later, _she thought, as she left the cellar and made her way back to her car. Doing so right away and kick down the door with three policemen in her wake might not be the best idea right now; not if they wanted to see the deal completed and find Blofeld. _Maybe Ressler had better luck._

Next up was Boscoe's home address.

No apartment building for Davey Boscoe. He had a real house, with a garden and a garage and everything. In the garden, a blonde-haired woman was pushing a small blonde boy on a swing. There was no question about their relationship: the child resembled the woman so much she could be no one but his mother.

Anasenko was beautiful. Even from a distance her sweet, fine-boned face and delicate figure were striking, and her sheet of long, straight, white-blonde hair shone like silver in the sun. Lizzie could well imagine a man taking certain risks to win that kind of woman.

_And she is here. Not at home._ Lizzie hesitated, torn between going back to Anasenko's place and investigating her flat and staying here to see if the woman would do anything. Finally, she turned her car around and drove back to Monument Street. She sincerely doubted Boscoe would keep Rainfield in the same house as his woman and child, who had obviously taken refuge here; and while it was nice to watch a young mom playing with her kid, she didn't think it would actually help her investigation.

She called Cooper to tell him she was going to try and break into Anasenko Yevgenieva's apartment and see if she could find anything, and all he said was to be careful. It made her smile, be it a little sourly. Reddington was turning all of them into criminals.

_Should I call Ressler? _She wondered briefly. _For backup? _But he was far more conspicuous than she was on her own, and besides, he might be in the middle of a B&E action of his own. She went alone.

This time, she had to wait a bit longer before she could slip into the building, but once she was in she managed to share the elevator with an enormously fat man and his equally obese spouse, and hide behind them while she rode up to the fifth floor. Thankfully, Anasenko didn't have a gallery flat, like Nicky, which would make it almost impossible to break in without being seen. She lived at the end of the hallway, and Lizzie was left undisturbed long enough to pick the lock and sneak inside.

She'd figured Anasenko would not have an alarm installed. If she had, she probably would have felt safe enough to stay home. As she entered the flat, Lizzie was relieved to find out her assumptions were correct. No alarm.

Not that there was much of interest here, either. Lizzie quickly went through the woman's stuff, feeling dirty and nervous, but she could find nothing. No incriminating letters—there were letters, all in Russian, and they all ended with Xs and hearts. More documents confirming that Anasenko's naturalization was getting along just fine. Boscoe seemed to be paying the legal fees. There was a photo of him holding little Jamie. In the photo, the boy seemed to be about two. Jamie featured in more photographs, all placed lovingly on side tables and shelves. Of Anasenko there was only one photo, one several years old as it showed her as a lanky teen, in which she posed with her arm wrapped around the neck of a girl perhaps a little younger who had to be a sister, or maybe a cousin. Both girls were heartbreakingly beautiful.

Anasenko's wardrobe resembled Nicky's, with lots of short, clingy tops and dresses, two pairs of jeans, a couple of fuzzy sweaters. She had three pairs of shoes, which was bafflingly few for any woman; two pairs of stiletto heels, one red and one black, and elegant black shoes with a lower heel. She had been wearing sensible boots in the garden, Lizzie recalled.

She pawed through a drawer filled with satiny bras, baby dolls and panties—apparently Anasenko spent her money on sexy underwear rather than shoes. And that was it, really.

She had a diary next to the phone, but the appointments written into it were clear, straightforward things like 'pick up Jamie 12.30', 'clients 17.00 – 23.00', 'David shop 14.00'. Nothing at all for the past three days. Lizzie took pictures of several of the pages, but at first glance she didn't think there had ever been a meeting with anyone important.

Half an hour after she'd entered, Lizzie left the apartment again, making sure nothing looked disturbed. Outside, it was slowly growing dark. Streetlights were popping on, still red before brightening to a yellowish-white. She sighed. Maybe Ressler had found anything.

"Well," Ressler grumbled, when they were sitting in a cosy little restaurant about 90 minutes later, "that was a waste of time and effort."

"Hey, I got to practice my lock picking skills."

He frowned; he was back to being angry all the time again.

Lizzie felt her own brow furrow in annoyance; she hated him when he was like this. She vaguely remembered severely disliking Ressler when they first met. In her mind, she'd referred to him as 'the cranky ginger'. And he'd _been_ a dick, at first, really. Belligerent. Overly tense. Overbearing. And angry. She didn't think he'd ever stopped scowling, the first month she worked at the Post Office.

Of course, she hadn't really known him, then.

And he'd mellowed out, over the months. Especially when Audrey came back into his life—hell, maybe he'd just really needed to get laid. But no, that wasn't the sole reason he'd become a little more laid-back—no pun intended. Ressler basically was a decent guy: inherently kind if overly serious, honest, protective, driven. But because he never did anything by halves, that also meant that his honesty was brutal, his protectiveness was aggressive, and his dedication rigid and single-minded. Audrey had distracted him from his total devotion to his job, and so he had become softer and friendlier. And when she was gone, that softness stayed, like a partially melted glacier.

She hasn't really started to consider him her friend, more than just a colleague, until that faithful night at the pub—the drink till you drop part, when he'd shown just how badly Audrey's death had affected him, and the morning after, when he'd told her he had her back if she needed him to. Hearing that, exactly when she needed to have someone say it, had turned their relationship into friendship. Not the sex, although that had been surprisingly great. That, and the fact that by then, he and Lizzie had simply gotten used to one another, and learned to appreciate each other. She had no doubts at all that Ressler truly liked her. But because his face made it difficult to read his emotions and he never pretended to be anything he was not, he made no effort to be nice to her, just was when things were going according to plan, and was moody and sometimes downright rude when something was bothering him.

Ressler really was very bad at keeping up appearances.

"So," she asked, when he kept glowering at his French fries as if they had personally conspired to make his life difficult. "What's bothering you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Either your filet mignon is truly vile, or something else is bugging you."

He snorted. "We're getting _nowhere_. The man could be anywhere. I shouldn't have wasted my time trying to suck up to Boscoe's bikers and followed him instead."

Ah, so he was feeling responsible for losing Skinny. She shrugged. "Do you really think he'd have let you tail him?"

"No." He speared a fry on his fork. "But I could have tried."

"And blown the whole operation if he'd discovered you." She gave his knee a nudge with her own below the table. "Cheer up. You're Aaron Stone and you're out with your girlfriend. You're supposed to be having a good time. This is the first time I've been out for dinner in…months."

He glanced up from his plate, and apparently something in her expression made him feel guilty, because his mouth quirked into a rueful little smile, and he relaxed a little.

"I thought you ate out most evenings."

"No, I don't, and takeaway is not the same as going out for dinner." She took a sip of wine. "Do you have time to cook every evening?"

He shook his head. "You know I don't. I'm usually right behind you in line. Well, perhaps not as often, nowadays…" He trailed off and they sat eating in silence for a while.

Lizzie sighed. "I don't know why it changed so much. Sure, I don't stay at the same place for more than a month, but I never leave the city. You'd say I'd be able to meet friends, have dinner at their place, but it's all…it just stopped." She looked up at him. "You've been living at your place for ages. There's no reason you should be all by yourself every evening."

_Your life wasn't destroyed by some word-renowned but oh so charming criminal. _Except that it was. Only in a different way than hers.

Ressler was scowling again. "I don't _have_ any friends. Do you have friends?"

"No. Everyone I knew…they were always Tom's friends." That wasn't it, really. She'd had friends, too. She was positive they were not involved with Tom or with Reddington. But how could she explain the fact that she was a widow, now? That Tom was gone? They'd ask questions, or be supportive, and all she wanted to do about the Tom topic was lock it in a box and never speak of it again. "But because of Tom…" she murmured.

Ressler saw right through her. "Bullshit."

Or maybe that was Aaron. "What?" she asked, rather sharply, and he repeated the word in the same flat tone of voice.

"Bullshit. It's not Tom. It's you. As in, you, the FBI profiler. You never met any people you liked in the gym? In the park? Never bumped into anyone you thought, well, let's go and have coffee just for the hell of it? Didn't you have a dog?"

"Tom walked her. I was never home on time." God, she missed that dog. She hoped the people who had adopted her were treating her well. "And…It's kind of hard to talk to people if you're not allowed to talk about what you do 8 to 10 hours a day, each day."

"Well, there you have it. Our job makes it impossible for us to make friends. I used to know a couple of guys I liked, and sometimes we hung out, drank beer, played darts, you know, that kind of thing. But whenever we decided to get together, I'd have to chase after Reddington's people. They kept inviting me, but if you never show up, they forget about you, and they were right." He pursed his lips, frowning. "My old team were my friends," he continued, softer. "Sam and Paul and Bobby, and Virgil and Jimmy before that. Jimmy was shot three years ago in Afghanistan. And the rest of my team are all dead, because of Bobby. They're all dead…but me."

"What about…Virgil?"

"He's in a sanatorium. He was captured. Tortured. They broke him. I used to visit him once every couple of months, but I haven't been there for…almost a year now."

"Why'd you stop visiting him?" she asked, curious. "Doesn't he recognize you?"

Ressler shrugged. "Yes, he does. He's…pretty much like himself. Most of the time. But the last time his wife and daughters were there, and he had some kind of backlash when I came in. Went completely apeshit. Started screaming, throwing things. They had to sedate him and when he finally calmed down he hunkered down in a corner and started rocking like a small child. He only stopped doing that when his youngest daughter brought out her pony toys." He sighed. "I can't deal with that kind of shit right now. I don't want to be responsible for his fragile psyche cracking and sending him into hell." He smiled humourlessly. "Those are my friends. Surely you can do better." He took a bite of haricots verts.

"I've got you," Lizzie said.

He sat very still for a couple of seconds, staring at her, before carefully chewing and swallowing his mouthful. "That…is not exactly all that much better."

"Huh. You're a riot at dinner." For a second she thought he'd get mad again—he was in a very strange mood, and she wasn't entirely sure how to coax him out of it—but then he smiled, a real smile, and inclined his head.

"I'm sorry. You're right. Let's forget about work until we're done."

"A sixty-minute break. Heaven."

Ressler smirked. "Sixty minutes? I'll be finished in about ten."

"You have no life," Lizzie said accusatively.

"Neither," said Ressler, and picked up another fry, "have you."


	8. Chapter 8

As Lizzie had focused on David Boscoe and possible locations where he could have hidden James 'Skinny' Rainfield, and had only pulled the general files of the 'Chosen', she agreed with Ressler to dig deeper into them. Claus and Solomon were easy; they had a history of crime, but Bani proved to be elusive and Shuo's file was inconclusive. The only picture the FBI had of him was shot from a distance, grainy and from an awkward angle.

"Prod Reddington," Ressler suggested, as they were strolling through the park. It may not be the most romantic place to be, but at least it was quiet and he could walk off the tension that curled in his spine. "I'm sure he's heard of him."

"That's not how he works," Lizzie said, shaking her head. She had to walk quite fast to keep her arm from slipping out of his. "He rarely gives me anything concrete."

"You usually do fine with just a hint," Ressler said. "I'm sure Shuo is important somehow. He's…too different from the rest of us. More sophisticated." Then he remembered the SMG and snorted. "Or maybe just more alien. Which reminds, me, were there any rape charges?"

"Oh! Yes. One."

"Did she get swabbed? Skin beneath her nails?"

"I can't remember. Not when I got the preliminary report. I'll have to look that up when it comes in."

"It would be a weight off my mind to know I could have him arrested whenever he's becoming a threat."

"I'll let you know the moment I do."

They walked in silence for a minute, Lizzie dragging at his arm to make him walk more slowly, and Ressler unconsciously pulling harder to keep his favoured pace. Her arm was an increasingly painful pressure on his bruises, but he said nothing; he was thinking about that poor girl he'd punched in the stomach, but was afraid to ask after her in case he'd actually seriously hurt her.

"There must be more places connected to either Boscoe or one of his contacts where they could hide Skinny," Ressler said. "You can't just go and raid a compound, capture someone and store them somewhere at random. This whole attack was carefully planned. Boscoe must have had a place available to lock Skinny up."

"Maybe the connection isn't Boscoe, but the Lion's Den," Lizzie pondered. "After all, they let him use the Outside; maybe he is more than just a regular."

They shot theories back and forth for another half hour, but by then a thin drizzle had started and Lizzie began to shiver in her short dress and little taupe jacket.

"I'll take you home," Ressler said. "Or are you staying at a hotel?"

"No, I'm sleeping at Nicky's place. It's nice—it has a bath." He quirked his mouth at that. "You aren't a bath person?"

"It takes way too long. I don't have the patience to soak in hot water. I'm not a vegetable."

They arrived back to where he'd parked his motorcycle, and Ressler drove back to Nicky's apartment. When they arrived, Lizzie looked like she might really need that bath, of only to warm up again. Bare legs were very attractive, but not very comfortable on a fast-driving bike at night.

"Will you be staying over?" she asked.

Ressler shook his head. "I want to check out the Lion's Den again. It has a huge cellar; maybe they're keeping Skinny there."

"Underneath a club?"

Ressler shrugged. "No one would hear anyone scream. The music and the voices are too loud."

Lizzie frowned. "Be careful, Don. Aaron. If they catch you…"

"They won't."

"Maybe I should go with you."

"No."

"You wouldn't have any backup."

"I won't need it. If I do, I'll call you."

She sighed. "At least send me a message when you're done, so I can go to sleep without having to be afraid you got brained by Blofeld."

Ressler promised her he would text her, this time did not forget to kiss her goodbye like a good boyfriend—it still felt a bit strange to do so in public, but not at all unpleasant—and drove off to the Lion's Den.

If Special Agent Donald Ressler would have walked into a club like the Lion's Den with the intention of finding a criminal kidnapped by criminals and, possibly, kept among criminals, he might have felt rather nervous, making his way through the club's sprawling building on his own. But Aaron Stone felt right at home in the club, bought himself a beer and leisurely explored all the rooms he had access to, tried all locked doors, and played poker with a group of men who called him back when he tried to go through a door they were apparently guarding. He won about a hundred bucks, and when he left to find another way to get into the basement, he was waved off with friendly insults.

He bought more beer; it kept him relaxed and feeling off-duty, enabling him to drift along the building with nothing but the small pistol and that holstered, with a maximum of ease. This was by far the most pleasant undercover job he'd ever done. Usually, he was eaten alive by his own nerves, and it was even worse when someone else was doing the slinking, and all he could do was listen in or watch the blips that were their lives move about on a computer screen.

This was actually rather nice. He should do it this way more often. Waving a warrant and kicking down doors, hollering 'FBI! Show me your hands and touch your nose to the floor!' certainly had its charm, but this sneaking about had its own appeal.

It wasn't very successful, though.

Sure, he made it into the basement by wringing himself through a window not made to give access to anything his bulk, but it only held two locked dinner rooms and twenty or so Blackjack tables—which may be illegal, but not what he was looking for. The rest of the basement served as a storing place for beer barrels, wine bottles and other drinks. The only thing of possible interest he found after three hours of casual research was a list of suppliers; wine, beer; both in bottles and in barrels for the tap, snacks; those kinds of things. But he only managed to get the list by distracting the man who was keeping his eye on it by pointing out a young man being violently sick in a potted fern, so he figured it should contain something worthwhile.

By then, it was almost one, and while he wasn't especially tired, he left the Den and made his way back to the motel. For one moment he debated calling Keen and asking her to look into the list he had just acquired, but she was probably asleep, or trying to sleep, in any case. Strange how his day/night rhythm had become fucked up so quickly. Instead, he sent her the pictures he had taken from the ledger along with a quick message: _**Hi, back already, you missed nothing. Coffee 11?**_

She sent a confirmation back a few minutes later.

Great. So…he should probably go to bed and make sure he'd get enough sleep to deal with whatever was going to go down tomorrow night. But his body had finally chewed through the after effects of the meth and the bed looked uninviting. He flipped through a couple of channels while rubbing a bit of cream into his tattoo—which was somewhat painful, with the bruise beneath it, but there was nothing on TV that could hold his attention for long. In the end, he took of his boots, put on his running shoes, and went for a jog.

Running hurt his arm, too, but as long as he kept it pulled tight against his chest, it wasn't so bad. As usual, running steadied him, even now he was on unfamiliar grounds and had to pay attention to where he was going. He mainly kept to the well-lit footpaths along the sparsely populated road, only running through a shaggy length of trees and no man's land when the sole other option was to turn around and go back; it wouldn't do to go through all this trouble being Aaron Stone and then get mugged and killed on a midnight run.

However, he did not feel any sense of healthy paranoia until he was almost back at the motel. The place was completely silent, just one light on, shadows moving in front of the curtained windows, five rooms down his own. Even as he was standing there, though, that light went off, and then everything was quiet.

He felt someone watching him.

Ressler wasn't superstitious. He didn't have the imagination to be afraid of things that went bump in the night. But instinct and the supernatural were two different things, and the sensation was strong enough to make him freeze where he was standing, right there in the shadow of a couple of trees, even if it seemed unfounded. He could see no one. The parking lot held five cars and his motorbike, lit by a row of street lights. The engine of one of them, an SUV closest to the room that had been lit a few minutes ago, was still ticking. Someone might be crouched down between them, but if they were, he didn't see them or their shadow. The diner at the far end of the motel was open; he could see light shining through the windows, but no smokers clustered in front of the door. Far away, a dog was barking, but here, closer by, everything was silent.

He waited for another five minutes, the skin of his neck prickling…but then the eyes on his skin seemed to close—there was still someone there, somewhere, but they weren't watching him anymore—and then disappeared altogether.

_Okay_…He bent down and pulled the .36 from his ankle holster—god, was he a boss for going jogging with a gun strapped to his leg or what?—stepped out of the shadow and gingerly approached the door to his room, his footsteps creaking on the walkway.

Nothing. His door seemed untouched. He unlocked it, slid inside, the gun at eye level, pointing in. Nothing.

He flicked on the light switch and the small room, the bathroom and even the walkway were flooded with light. Everything was exactly the way he'd left it. Nevertheless he took a moment to check in the closet and behind the shower stall, but everything was clear, so he turned off the main light and the outside light, locked the door and made sure that the windows were still locked as well, and tucked away the gun.

_Well. That was odd._ Still, if it looked like a duck, quacked like a duck, and tasted like duck, it probably was a duck, or in this case: nothing. Just to prove that he wasn't spooked and that his life was not ruled by paranoia, he took a quick shower, although he made sure his back was never to the door and he conveniently left the gun lying on the toilet right next to the stall.

Then he demonstratively went to bed, the .36 tucked beneath his pillow.

He did not, however, sleep very well, despite the duck.

"I'm seeing Red in an hour," Lizzie told him the following morning, while he was trying to wake up over his second cup of coffee.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I guess we should feel honoured he's still in town. He usually can't be bothered to postpone any of his own 'business'," She grimaced, "while we're chasing his Blacklisters."

"Hooray," Ressler muttered. _I should not, _he told himself, _use meth and storm the lair of a drug lord. And then not get enough sleep. And drink too much alcohol while sneaking around in the dead of night in a pub that could function as a fumigation centre. And then go running. And then have hallucinations of being spied upon and miss out on sleep again. It's bad for my biorhythm. _He looked up from his coffee and was all but hit in the face by 'Nicky's' breasts, bulging up over her crossed arms on the table. It took him a moment before he could pull his eyes away from that and address her face. "Did you manage to take a look at that list I sent you?"

She shook her head. "I sent it to the civvies downtown. They'll trace it for me." She stirred her cappuccino. "I keep thinking I'm missing something. Something to do with Anasenko. I saw something, but I don't have…I don't know. I'm sure she's important somehow. Maybe Red can help me with that."

"Let's hope so. I don't know what tonight will bring, but time is running out. Even if Skinny was alive yesterday, chances he'll survive this are getting smaller by the hour."

"I know, I know, the 24 hour rule."

"It's been more than that, now," Ressler said quietly. "And I hurt him pretty badly. Without medical attention he'll either die of blood loss or infection. And I doubt someone is going to take him to the hospital or give him a blood transfusion."

"He really couldn't be held below the club?"

"No."

"Maybe something comes out of that list of yours."

"Hm."

"Don't start thinking of him like a victim," Lizzie said, with a frown. "He's not. He's a criminal. He beat his women, Ressler. I did some more research into it, and there were a lot more than only Anasenko Yevgenieva. He may have even killed a few; it's hard to find out because so many of them were here illegally." She leaned forward, and he noticed with a mixture of amusement and despair that the spoon in her cup was threatening to disappear into her cleavage. "Are you ok? You seem to be a bit…"

"A bit what?"

"Distracted."

_It's your tits._ "I didn't sleep much last night," he said truthfully. "Also, if you lean forward a little bit more and rotate your upper body you can probably stir your coffee without upsetting your cup." Damn it, he wasn't supposed to voice that thought!

Lizzie sat up straight with a startled expression on her face—but the spoon handle was firmly wedged between her breasts, pulled out of her coffee and remained there, dripping brown drops onto the table.

Ressler stared at the spoon head rising up from her chest like the grip of a tiny dagger and tried to keep a straight face. He usually didn't have much of a problem with that. But then Lizzie started to giggle, and the spoon jiggled up and down with her laughter, and he couldn't help himself and started laughing as well.

"Right, so much for me being a convincing fashion girl," Lizzie murmured, which made him snicker even more.

"Allow me." He plucked out the spoon, wiping a drop of coffee from a pale half-globe of flesh with his finger, repressed the sudden rush of lust he felt at imagining licking it away instead, and plunked the spoon back into her cup. "You just need more practice."

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He grinned. "I wouldn't mind." He forced himself to sober up. "However. Skinny. I'm stumped for the time being."

"If the cops downtown or Red give me any relevant information, I'll let you know," Lizzie promised.

An hour later, Lizzie zipped up her jacket to the neck, pulled down her dress as far as it would go and sat down on a bench overlooking a playground. The playground was circled with these kind of benches—which was great for mothers and grandparents wanting to keep an eye on their children while having an excuse not to play on the slide, but to exchange gossip with a befriended neighbour instead. It was, Lizzie thought with a little shiver, an excellent spot for creepy men lusting after little kids. She stared hard at a forty-year-old man who was intently regarding the children over his partially lowered newspaper.

Thankfully, there were a lot of parents around.

"Relax," a light voice drawled from her right—Reddington. As most of the benches were occupied by at least one person, he had simply sat down next to her. "He's not a paedophile."

She jumped a little. It always surprised her how much like a ninja that plain-looking man could move. "How do you know?"

"I was here half an hour ago and saw him kiss the woman who brought that little girl." He nudged his hatted head at a shrieking child on a seesaw. "My guess is that the woman is having an affair with him and is using that to get a cheap babysitter."

"Really."

"I could find out, if you'd like?" Red asked gallantly.

Lizzie hid a smile. He would, too, if she asked. "No," she said, "thank you."

"You had questions. I have one of my own. Or rather, I have a remark." Lizzie raised her eyebrow. "Cystitis."

"I beg your pardon?"

Reddington looked at her over the rim of his sunglasses. At her bare legs, more specifically. "Lizzie, while it's a beautifully sunny day, it's still autumn and the wind is _fierce_, at times."

Subconsciously, she pulled the hem of her dress a little further down her thighs.

"You were the one to create Nicky Coxx," she shot back. "So you're responsible for what she's wearing."

"Surely she has a decent pair of pants," Red said. He sounded like her dad. When she was fourteen. "Or a pair of tights."

"She could not find any in her closet this morning. And we're not here to discuss my wardrobe," Lizzie said firmly. "We're her to discuss Xian Shuo and Anasenko Yevgenieva."

"Yevgenieva?" That seemed to draw his attention.

"Yes," Lizzie said eagerly. "Anasenko Yevgenieva." She showed him a picture she'd taken with her cellphone. "She's Davey Boscoe's girlfriend. Why, do you know her?"

Red was frowning a little. He stared at the picture, then went back to watching the playing children and slowly shook his head. "I'm not sure. I knew of a Yevgenieva, but…"

And suddenly Lizzie knew what it was about Anasenko that had been bugging her for the past evening and morning. The picture. The picture of the two girls. It had been taken in America; right here in Baltimore. The other girls was here as well. "Her sister. She has a younger sister."

"That's it," Red nodded, "it wasn't Ana, it was Olesya. Does the name Edgar Bodwin ring a name?"

"Bodwin…Bodwin…" The name seemed familiar, but it had been quite some time since she'd read it.

"Think scandal," Reddington hinted, and it came to her in a jolt of memory.

"Edgar Bodwin was that congressman who resigned because it turned out he was cheating on his wife with an underage girl. He was on your Kingmaker's list! But…" She frowned. "He was publicly disgraced."

"Can you remember why?" Red asked, in that incredibly annoying 'I want you to get there under your own power' patient voice of his.

She couldn't. Not really. She must have read about it, but the scandal itself was more than four years ago, and she'd only read about it, fleetingly, when they were on the Kingmaker case. Even if it had been on TV, and it probably had been, it hadn't seemed terribly important to her. Just another scandal. Just another man thinking with his dick.

"Because of that girl…" she fished, and Red smiled.

"Olesha. Olesya Yevgenieva. Do you have her file?"

"No. I'm not sure it exists. She wasn't mentioned in Anasenko's file as next of kin, that's why I never thought of her. I thought she might still be in Russia."

"Perhaps," Red drawled, and took of his head so the sun could shine on his close-cropped scalp, "that's because she's dead."

"The sister…Olesya is dead? But she's so…young."

"She died young," Red confirmed. "It was her death that led to the investigation, which in turn led to the abdication of the congressman."

"But…what's the connection?" She balled her fists in frustration. "There's something connecting all of this together. Blofeld, Anasenko—or maybe her son, and through the son Boscoe…and Rainfield, Skinny, and the Kingmaker…"

"Oh, there is a connection," Reddington said. "And it might be a significant one."

"Then help me!" She briefly turned to face him, unmindful of their secrecy. "We desperately need to talk to Skinny, but we have no idea where he is. He must know Blofeld—and what you've just said only confirms it. We must find him and talk to him, if he's still alive."

"Then you'd better get a complete picture, hadn't you?" the informant said, smiling closed-eyed into the sun.

God, save her from cryptic men. Gritting her teeth, she started ticking off facts on her fingers.

"Fine. A little more than four years ago, congressman Bodwin was publicly crucified for sleeping with an underage girl. His affair was discovered because she was found dead in an alley somewhere. The Kingmaker had worked long and hard to get him there, so it was probably not him who…" She halted. "Perhaps the Kingmaker had Olesya killed? To save Bodwin's career?"

"Mr King was paid to get someone somewhere. If the Kings then decide to throw everything away, that is up to them. The Kingmaker would not go around killing girls out of vengeance, or to save his client if he was stupid enough to get involved with her." He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. "Think broader. What is the connection between the girl and Blofeld?"

"I…I don't know. All I can think of is Skinny."

"Yes? How?"

"Skinny was her pimp." Her eyes widened with a sudden realization. "He was the one who killed her." She knew this for certain. "He beat his women. He used to beat Anasenko; it stands to reason that he hit her sister as well. He killed her by accident."

Red shot her a satisfied little smile. "Go on."

"So, we have the Kingmaker, and Skinny, but not Blofeld. But the Kingmaker didn't care about Bodwin sleeping with an underage prostitute, and if it was Blofeld who gave Boscoe the order to get Skinny…" She closed her eyes and mouthed a silent 'Aargh!'.

Reddington took pity on her. "You're almost there. Note that I cannot be certain of anything you've just surmised; it's just speculation."

"Blofeld somehow wanted Anasenko's sister to be the favourite prostitute of a congressman."

"A congressman with a soaring political career. Yes. And underage women become legal, at one point. If I remember correctly, she was very lovely, dear little Olesya."

Lizzie shot him a glance, but he had his eyes closed again. Had Reddington dipped his wick in 'dear little Olesya' as well? She didn't want to know. But she couldn't help asking, "Did you meet her?"

"Only the once. That is why I knew of Bodwin's liaison with the Kingmaker. It had his scent all over it. I was wondering what she was doing there, at that party—it was a rather official party," he added confidentially. "Not really a place for a girl not eighteen years old."

"Did you know she was connected to Blofeld?"

"No. It just makes sense. It may even be that Blofeld and the Kingmaker were working together by placing her in Bodwin's path. First, the Kingmaker ensures that Bodwin becomes a political rising star. Blofeld introduces the kind of girl he can't possibly resist, with the intention to use their relationship to manipulate Bodwin's political choices at a later time. The poor congressman finds out she's underage long after incriminating pictures have been taken. On top of that, he finds himself falling truly in love with the Russian angel."

"And then Skinny kills her," Lizzie continued, nodding. And suddenly she understood the time frame as well, and if she was right, then she knew why Blofeld had wanted Skinny. Excitement coiled in her belly. "Olesya…she resembled Anasenko, didn't she? Perhaps she was even prettier, but they did look alike, didn't they?"

Red inclined his head. "If I hadn't known any better, I'd have thought the picture you just showed me was Olesya. Of course, it's been a couple of years…"

"Yes, so Blofeld thought about salvaging matters with Anasenko. But," she said triumphantly, "by that time, Boscoe had gotten Anasenko pregnant. So she wasn't available anymore. Worse, Boscoe'd made a deal with Skinny to become his partner in exchange for Anasenko's freedom." She nodded to herself. It made sense, this way. "And that's why he charged Boscoe with Skinny's capture. He probably gave Skinny Boscoe's son himself. If Boscoe failed to bring Skinny to him, to Blofeld, he'd lose his son—the son that had thwarted Blofeld's plans with Anasenko. It was Blofeld's punishment for Boscoe and Anasenko. "

Red nodded. "They weren't exactly to blame, but their love baby did ruin his plans. There was relatively little chance of Boscoe failing to capture Skinny, and no matter whether the child survived, Boscoe would continue to serve Blofeld. It sounds plausible. Far-fetched and complicated, but the truth usually is."

Lizzie sighed. "But it doesn't tell me where Blofeld is keeping Skinny. Or whether he's still alive."

"I think he will be. Consider that Blofeld left Skinny alive all this time, simply because he couldn't be bothered—or perhaps because he hadn't thought of a fitting revenge yet. He wouldn't have simply done away with him that quickly."

"Anasenko might have an idea."

"I doubt it. But you can always try talking to her."

"Not until Ressler knows when and where the shipment comes in," Lizzie said. "Arresting Anasenko might blow his cover."

Reddington laughed. "Yes, how _is_ Ressler doing these days? Or maybe I should say: How is Aaron doing?"

Lizzie shrugged. _Turning into a stranger, no, turning into Aaron for real, little by little. Being uncharacteristically short-tempered and exhausted._ She said, "Taking an awful risk. For you."

"I'm not forcing anyone to take any risks," Red argued.

"You know Ressler isn't going to drop this until he's got Blofeld."

He picked up his hat and put it back on his flushing skull. "I should hope so! You had another name you wanted to discuss?"

Lizzie shook herself. "Yes. Xian Shuo."

"I know his sister."

"His sister?"

"Xian is a younger brother to an infamous sister. That makes him dangerous. Did you look for Black Ghost? There should be more than enough on him if you dig deep enough. The sister's name is Lin Yin. You will find very little on her, which means she is twice as dangerous as her brother." He looked up as Dembe casually strolled by. "I have to go. Good luck finding Skinny. You're right; he might know something. Blofeld's face, or an alias." He carefully adjusted his pants at the knees, got up, gave her a slight nod and walked off.

"So," Ressler paraphrased, as he leaned his elbows on the Harley's steering handlebars and gently rocked the bike back and forth. "Let me see if I'm getting this right. Anasenko had a sister. The sister was underage but was the favourite of the local congressman. Blofeld wanted her there and with him because he wanted to…what? Manipulate the congressman? Or influence him through her?"

"Yes," Lizzie said.

"But Skinny killed her, before she could make her move. Blofeld's next option was Anasenko—who was older, but looked a lot like the sister. However, Boscoe had got her knocked up, and she was no longer available. Hence the revenge on Skinny, and the revenge on Boscoe and Anasenko both by playing Jamie into Skinny's hands."

"Yes."

He sighed. "I don't know, Liz. Even if that is the background of this whole charade, how does that help us now?"

"Well, for one, it gives us a new perspective of things. It means that both Anasenko and Skinny must have met Blofeld personally."

"Unless he worked by proxy. As he's doing now."

"It's something to keep in mind," Lizzie said stubbornly. "I know we can't pick her up yet, but the moment you have the necessary information, we can question her and see what she knows." Ressler made a noncommittal sound. "In the meantime, you could go and check out the following addresses," Lizzie continued. She gave him three; a wine company, a frozen snacks delivery business, and a Budweiser distribution centre.

Ressler drove around most of the day, investigating these places, finding absolutely nothing, and becoming more and more despondent.

It was almost a relief when he could go back to the Lion's Den and face Boscoe and the other Chosen again.


	9. Chapter 9

When Ressler arrived, let in Outside by the porter, Claus, Boscoe and Solomon were already sitting in the gazebo. A cloud of smoke hung over them, crinkling up from their mouths and cigarettes. They were playing poker, for cash, by the looks of it.

"Hey," he said.

"Welcome back," Claus greeted. He jerked his chin at a chair. "Want to join in?"

"Sure," Ressler said, hiding a smirk. "Why not?"

He proceeded to win three of the next five rounds, taking two rounds to get to know the players. If there was one thing he excelled at, it was poker; always had, since high school, when they played it during the break. During the long hours hunting Reddington, he and the boys had spent most of their surveillance hours playing cards; the game theory held no secrets for him, and he knew enough about psychology to be able to predict how other people would play. Solomon was hard to predict, until he found out that the man couldn't suppress a tiny grin whenever he received a good card. Boscoe was pretty good at playing cards, but he didn't take risks, and after paying attention to his bets for a couple of rounds, Ressler thought he had figured out the way he worked. Playing against Claus was easy; his face turned a nice even red whenever he was bluffing. After a couple of hands he couldn't get any redder, but his poker face was still awful. Ressler's own poker face was, naturally, outstanding. He especially liked the way Claus scrutinized his face while he shamelessly bluffed his way to victory with a four, a six and an eight of spades, a Jack of diamonds and a three of hearts.

"Aw Christ," Claus spat, slamming down his hand on his cards when Ressler spread out his useless hand and raked in a handful of dollar bills. "Again?"

"Yup. Sorry."

Claus shook his head in disgust and lipped a new cigarette out of his carton. He offered Ressler one, too, but he declined.

"I quit last year."

"What the hell for?"

"I told you I mashed up my face, didn't I?"

"Yeah? You can smoke through a fucking mask, can't you?" He lit his own smoke with obvious relish.

"Not if your jaws are wired shut and you have a feeding tube down your throat." He took a swallow from his beer bottle. "Where's Shuo? I'd like to test my poker face against his."

Boscoe laughed. "You'd lose. You're pretty good at hiding your emotions, but Shuo doesn't seem to have any in the first place. Can't beat that."

"He's late," Solomon rumbled.

Claus shrugged. "One less competitor. Taking of which, where's Bani?"

Boscoe glanced up and jerked his head towards the stairs. "There. Both of 'em."

A low whistle sounded from Claus' mouth. The man was a genius: could whistle _around_ a cigarette. "Shoulda stayed in bed." He raised his voice, "Hey Bani, man. Did you change colour overnight?"

"Fuck you," Bani replied, but even his voice sounded weak. His face was greyish, eyes sunken and dull, a thin sheen of sweat catching the light on his nose and cheekbones. His wounded arm was swathed in bandages from shoulder to wrist, and held immobile against his chest. He gratefully sank into the chair Boscoe pulled out for him, closing his eyes once he was off his feet and shaking his head when offered a beer.

Ressler noticed Solomon staring at the wounded man, a hungry light in his eyes. The tip of the big man's tongue came out and licked his lower lip. He repressed a shiver. Something in that eager expression made him incredibly uneasy.

_Bani is not going to survive this, _he knew. _Not if he sticks around. Solomon will kill him. Eat him, for all I know._

He looked up at Shuo, smiling broadly. "Shuo. Will you join us for a round of poker?"

Shuo gazed back impassively. "I was hoping we would get further instructions. But fine, I'll play."

Both Claus and Solomon cheered at that. They made space for him around the table. Boscoe produced another dish with lines—cocaine this time, 'To keep us focused,' as he said. Ressler had no desire to mess up his head even more, but he didn't dare say no. The others all snorted down their line with obvious delight. Thank god it wasn't meth, or he'd be bouncing off the walls yet another eight to ten hours. Coke didn't affect him that much; it only made him feel more awake, good-humoured and relaxed. That was good, actually. He needed to be alert if he wanted to catch Shuo bluffing.

"Right then," Boscoe said, shuffling the cards and then distributing them. "5 card draw. Are you familiar with it?"

"Who isn't?" was Shuo's return question. As he was sitting left of Boscoe, he opened by tossing a dollar bill onto the table. Solomon and Claus both added another dollar and Ressler raised it, just to see what Shuo would do. Shuo called, Solomon folded and Claus, reddening, called as well. Ressler raised again. He already had a straight flush with a queen, but even if he'd had nothing, he'd have raised.

"Are you ever going to let me play?" Boscoe asked, lighting another cigarette.

"Sure. Shuo?"

Shuo called, Claus, squinting at Ressler's face, called as well. Boscoe raised, smiling. They all matched the stakes and then put down the cards they didn't want face-down on the table. Ressler was perfectly happy with his straight flush, so he kept from drawing new cards. Shuo and Boscoe both took two new cards; Claus took three. His lips tightened.

_Bad luck there, buddy, _Ressler thought happily. He kept his face straight and pretended to hesitate before adding more dollars to the pile. Boscoe raised again. Ressler studied his face, wondering how good his cards were exactly. Boscoe was bad at bluffing and therefore tried to avoid it. His cards had to be good, then. Better than a straight flush?

Shuo, who had no experience playing against Boscoe, called. Claus folded, scowling. Ressler raised. He met Boscoe's eyes.

"Really?" the other man asked.

"I'm feeling lucky tonight."

Boscoe hesitated. Then his mouth thinned—he raised as well. They both looked at Shuo, who unperturbedly put more dollars in the pot. Ressler realised he had no clue what kind of cards the Asian man was holding. He was, however, enjoying his little battle of wills with Boscoe. Finally, Boscoe stopped raising the stakes and flung his cards down, showing a straight flush. Starting with a five.

"Ah, that's a damn shame," Ressler drawled, showing his own 8, 9, 10, Jack and Queen of clubs. The eyes of the players, and Bani's as well, all went to Shuo's hand.

"Indeed," Shuo said, baring a Full House. It was a good hand, just not good enough.

Resser grinned. He gathered the bills in a neat pile and put it next to his beer bottle. "Another round?"

"Yes," Solomon said.

"No," said Shuo. "Not before I know what the next step is to acquiring the shipment."

"Very well." Boscoe leaned back into his chair. "It's very easy. The container will be delivered in three to four days. It will arrive on the Havanna 5 HV from Venezuela. The container's number is," he pulled a piece of paper from his front pocket, "write this down. Everyone got a pen? Right, the number is 234-52872-391." He tucked the paper away again. "To you gentlemen the task to find out where the container will be delivered."

"That is our next test?" Solomon asked, confused.

"It's not a test. It's something you need to find out."

"So, you don't know where this container is going to arrive?"

"Well, somewhere in the harbour, I gather," Boscoe deadpanned. "But it's a mighty big harbour."

"What keeps us from killing you now that we know what container we're looking for?" the big man asked.

Boscoe raised an eyebrow. "Common decency, I hope. Well, that, and the fact that you won't leave this club alive if you try anything like that. Besides, did you think that you'd get fifty crates of bricks? Don't be absurd. You still need my help getting it out of the harbour area." He leaned forward. "After you've found out where it's going to be stored. So go, find out. I'll be here, every day, from eight to ten. Find me when you know where the container's gonna be. The information might not become available until the boat's closer, so I suggest you keep a good eye on the books and check regularly." His gaze released Solomon and moved on to the next person, who happened to be Bani. "Again," he continued, "you're free to team up. We're talking big bucks here; there's no shame in sharing the risks and the profits alike."

Solomon snorted, but Claus gave Ressler a small nod, which he did not return. Shuo got up from his seat.

"Thank you," he said. "I'll see you when I have the information you require." He did not bow, but gave the impression that he did and left the gazebo. The porter let him back inside the club, and he disappeared.

"Good riddance," Claus muttered. He dug into his pocket and came up with a small sealed bag. "Anyone up for another round of poker and a sweet little dose of this? I dare say it's as good as your stuff, Boscoe."

_There we go again, _Ressler thought with a sigh. But he didn't refuse, and he kept winning at poker, even if he lost the occasional round.

Ressler left the Lion's Den at a little past one at night, coming down from his third high, two hundred dollars richer than when he'd arrived and trying desperately to separate his Aaron Stone character from his own. When he was high, it was easier to be Aaron—easier than easy, it was impossible not to be him. But Aaron wasn't concerned with Skinny and refused to think of him. It was very strange, but Ressler found himself _unable_ to search for clues on where the drug dealer was being kept while the chemicals were burning in his blood. Don Ressler's thoughts were on very little else, and it was unsettling to have his own thoughts try to play dodge inside his head.

_No more drugs, _he told himself firmly, as he kickstarted the Harley. _I don't care what they'll think, I'm not taking any more meth or coke or whatever they come up with. It feels too good, and it's making me lose myself. Can't afford that._

He wasn't afraid he wouldn't find the docking information Boscoe wanted. Even if he didn't use the official channels, he'd be able to find it in the harbourmaster's books. Hell, if he gave the team the name of the boat and the number of the container, there was little chance they'd miss it. The shipment, Reddington had said, took precedence over catching Blofeld. But Reddington might work that way; Ressler didn't. He was convinced Blofeld was here—behind the scenes, perhaps, but definitely here in Baltimore. If he was here, he could be caught, and Aaron—no!—Ressler, would catch him.

But first he had to sleep. If not for the cocaine, he'd have knocked off and gone to bed an hour earlier. Cooper had put the cops on several of the addresses Liz had found on Ressler's Lion's Den list; they should be surveying those places and alert Cooper on any strange activity. There was nothing he could do in the meantime, so he might as well get some rest so he could start afresh in the morning.

He parked the Harley on the almost empty lot; it must be a quiet night for the motel.

_That's another possibility, _he thought, as his boots fell heavily on the ramp. _A hotel, or a motel. As long as it's paid for, you can keep someone in a room almost indefinitely. And there are so many weird people who don't want any cleaning, staff doesn't even notice it anymore._ He heaved a sigh, put the key in the lock and opened his door.

The outside of the door was painted a plain, light, desert-brown colour, with a thick layer of polish to protect it against dust, kicking feet and to produce a rich shine in the sunlight.

That mirror polish was the only thing that warned Ressler, because he saw a shape reflected beyond his own outline and started to turn his head in reaction—and then someone barrelled into him, shoving him into the room and landing on his back as he smacked to the floor. Even as he fell, he felt something slip around his neck and brought up one hand to catch it, the next moment the garrotte pulled tight around his throat and fingers, cutting off his air and sawing into his skin.

_Crap! What…? _He struggled to get his knees beneath him, but his attacker clung to his back like a rodeo rider and pushed his shoulders down with his elbows while tightening his hold on the wire around his neck. He was, however, considerably lighter than Ressler, and he couldn't keep him from trashing. His reaction was to yank full strength on the garrotte, forcing Ressler's head back to keep from choking. Despite his hand keeping some of the pressure away from his throat, the wire bit into the thyroid cartilage where it stuck out to form his Adam's apple; blood ran down his neck and slicked his wildly scrabbling fingers.

_Can't breathe. Can't…breathe!_ All he could see was red, with great black stars exploding as his oxygen ran out and panic began to blossom.

He clawed for his assailant's eyes with his free hand, couldn't find purchase and blindly slammed his back against the bed. His own bed wouldn't have given him much help there, but the motel's bed frame had a good sharp edge, and the man gave a grunt of pain and his grip on Ressler's back slackened. Immediately, Ressler lashed out with his elbow, driving it hard into his attacker's chest; he felt bone give, and heard another muffled exclamation of pain. One of the hands asphyxiating him released the garrotte, and Ressler jerked away, coughing and wheezing for air. He could still hardly see anything; the room was dark and the door had fallen closed behind them, and spots were still dancing in front of his eyes. He reached for his ankle, but before his fingers touched the holster, the figure on the bed kicked out with both legs towards his face, and even though he brought up his arms to deflect the blow he could feel rather than see coming, he went down again. Not for long, though; his hand closed around the leg of the chair and, rolling to his feet, swung it in an arch towards the man on the bed—who wasn't there anymore. Blinking furiously, breath still whistling through his throat, Ressler tried to locate him, only to have his legs mowed away from underneath him again by a vicious spinning kick—the man had rolled over the bed and then slid, eel-like, beneath it; he appeared again with a little twist of his body while Ressler struggled to get his limbs untangled from the chair so he could make for his gun.

"Stay down," a soft voice urged. "I'll make it fast."

Shuo.

Well, who else, really?

"Fuck you," Ressler gasped. His fingers closed around the grip of the .36, but the moment he raised it Shuo chopped down the side of his hand on his wrist, and the gun spun away from his numb fingers. It clattered down next to the bed, but that one split second Ressler took to follow its path was enough for Shuo to dropkick him in the chest and send him crashing into a wall. He hit it head first, and for a few seconds everything went blindingly white and utterly still.

_Fuck move fuck __**move**__ stop him __**stop**__ him or he'll kill me he'll kill me he'll kill me_

He didn't even feel that much pain but his body wouldn't obey his mind's frantic commands, and when Shuo's soft footsteps halted right in front of him and the gleam of that wicked little knife of his pierced the whirling grey, all he could think of to buy him some more time was to rasp, "Why?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Shuo asked. Ressler was amazed he entered conversation at all, but maybe the Chinese needed to catch his breath as well. He sank to his haunches just out of reach, body blurry but slowly coming into focus; elbows resting on his thighs and hands dangling between his knees. The tip of the knife barely touched the floor. "At the moment, you're Boscoe's favourite. And I won't work with you."

"Why not?" Ressler mumbled. He clenched his fists and kept blinking. Blood squelched between his fingers and his left hand hurt like hell, but they moved and that was something. Shuo's black outline and white face remained fuzzy, but at least he could make out some details again.

"I dislike you," Shuo said. It was a surprisingly honest statement.

"Killing me seems…rather extreme."

"My dislike is rather extreme."

_I am an FBI agent. If you kill me, you'll be hunted down like a dog._ He couldn't say it, not even now. Then again, he doubted Shuo would refrain from murdering him in cold blood if he knew he was a government agent. He might only hide his body more carefully. 

"I…" he began, but Shuo interrupted him, "Don't tell me you'll pull out. You won't."

"This isn't worth dying for," Ressler said.

Shuo smiled his terrifying little smile. "Yes," he said. "it is." His arm struck like a snake, but Ressler was ready for it and launched himself to the side. The knife ripped through his shirt but barely grazed him, and he kicked at Shuo's face as the smaller man threw himself at him.

Where was that gun? The moment he started to move everything became hazy again.

Shuo grabbed one of his legs and yanked him away from the bed, then changed his grip and grabbed Ressler beneath the chin with his left hand.

_He completes this move and he'll slit my throat._

Ressler placed both hands flat on the ground and pushed himself up with all his might, slamming his head back into Shuo's face. At the same time, he grasped for the right hand he knew was making its way to his neck. Something crunched beneath his skull, and the pain of it was like an explosion that made his ears ring; but he had no other means to attack so he gritted his teeth and did it again, bending his neck until his chin touched his chest and smashing it into Shuo's nose. They both fell down again, Shuo on the floor on his back and Ressler on top of him. Shuo pummelled him with his left hand, his fingers digging into Ressler's face, reaching for his eyes. Ressler, taking advantage of his greater weight, immobilized the man's kicking legs with his own, straightened his back to keep the wildly bucking body flat on the ground, kept the nails out of his eyes with his left hand and caught the flailing arm with the knife in his right.

God, Shuo was strong, and it was as if he was double-jointed; his limbs were all over the place. But Ressler may not be a contortionist, he wasn't slow either, and he had a lot of training. He brought his head down on Shuo's broken nose one more time and then twisted, using the man's own momentum to yank the hand holding the knife towards him.

Had Shuo dropped the knife, then he might have had another chance to free himself.

But he did not drop the knife.

And Ressler tore it, pointing down, across Shuo's throat.

_Fuck! _He recoiled from the thick spray of blood that hit his face. _Fuck, I killed him! No, I need to talk to him!_

Shuo bucked, covered his gaping throat with his hands and, unbelievably, scrambled to his feet. Blood pumped through his fingers, and from his nose, poured down his front. He stared at Ressler, his eyes so wide they were round, but the rest of his face was still expressionless. Choking, he tried to make it to the door, but he stumbled and went down near the bathroom.

_Blood._

The floor of the room was parquet, or something that looked like it. Forcing himself to his feet, Ressler shoved Shuo's upper body into the bathroom, which had a tiled floor.

A nice, white floor. He landed face up, convulsing, mouth opening and closing as a fought for air, but his throat made sucking noises and he was drowning in his own blood. It ran in rivulets in the spaces between the tiles before they flooded and became a flat pool.

Shuo's hands fell from his throat, the fingers still spasming. His breath bubbled through his cut trachea, once, twice more, and then fell silent. Blood continued to gush from his severed aorta.

Ressler fell to his knees, gasping and dizzy and completely drained. His neck hurt. His left hand hurt as well, and he noticed he was bleeding from wire-cuts in his first two fingers. A soft pitter-patter on the floor beneath him made him put his hand in the way of the sound, and he found out that he was dripping blood on the floor from a cut on his own throat.

He cursed, clutched at the wound, then looked at Shuo again. And he began to laugh. It hurt, and it didn't sound very healthy, but his mirth was genuine; he could appreciate the irony.

But he couldn't just leave the corpse here; the blood was spreading and there was no way he could clean this all up by himself, not in his current condition. The question was, what did he do now?

Call the cops? No. That would draw too much attention to him.

Cooper? Cooper couldn't magic a dead body out of here.

That left one other person. He didn't like it, but it was his only option.

Now, was the motel room bugged, or wasn't it?

Stumbling outside, he had to grab the railing to keep upright, and when he finally reached a place he deemed secure, he fumbled the cell phone twice before he managed to hit 1.

Reddington picked up after two rings. "Aaron."

"I have a body," he blurted out. "It's clogging up my bathroom."

To Reddington's credit, he didn't even pause. "Is it hidden?"

"For the moment, yes. He's in my motel room." He released his neck and cursed as a thin stream of blood ran into his shirt.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, more or less."

"Did anyone see him come in?"

"I don't think so. All's clear now. I have reason to believe he operates on his own."

"I'm sending someone to take care of this. She'll be there in about half an hour. You're outside? Go back inside and lock your door."

"I'm at…"

"She can track you by GPS," Reddington interrupted him.

"I'm calling Cooper as well," Ressler said, more to hear Red's reaction than anything else.

"Naturally," was that reaction, and then the line went dead.

He did call his boss, wondering absentmindedly what any future spies would think of him calling his mechanic in the middle of the night. Middle of the night or no, Cooper picked up at the second ring as well. His sleep-voice was so gravely he was all but incomprehensible. Ressler kept it short. "Someone just tried to kill me. I killed him instead."

"Who?"

"Shuo."

"Did you…"

"Yes. He said he'd send someone." His neck would not stop bleeding.

"Are you injured?"

The back of his collar was wet, too. "Not badly. I'll live."

"Good. I'll get back to you."

Ressler went back to his room, holding his neck. Thankfully, the other rooms remained dark, or maybe they simply weren't occupied. Inside, he was hit by the smell of blood and fear—his fear, mainly, he guessed. Shuo's body lay in the opening to the bathroom like a large black door stopper. His features looked no different in death than they had in life. Only the mirroring eyes had gone dull. His trachea gaped open like a maw; the spurting had stopped but his head—and most of the bathroom floor—swam in blood.

"Jesus." He gagged, but managed to keep from throwing up. His own head, now the adrenaline was wearing off, was pounding with a sick, nauseating ache, originating from the back of his skull. His investigating fingers found split skin and congealing blood on a rapidly swelling lump, but touching it made him feel worse than when he left it alone, so he just wrapped a couple of yards of toilet paper around his fingers, pressed a clot of it against his neck and sat on his bed, leaning his head against a pillow propped against the wall. He had found the small pistol and returned it to its holster, and sat watching the door with his .44 trained on the lock.

At first, his aim was unwavering, but after a few minutes his hand, and then all of him, started to first quiver and then shake so badly he had to put the weapon down and draw his knees against his chest to keep the legs of the bed from drumming on the floor.

Dear god, that had been close. Way too close. If he hadn't smashed his head into Shuo's face, it would have been him lying there now, and not Shuo. Even though he didn't want to, his gaze was drawn to the man's corpse and that astonishing amount of syrupy blood. Even when the .44 was steady again, his eyes kept wandering to that open neck, making him shiver.

True to Reddington's promise, not half an hour later someone knocked on his door.

"Who is it?" he asked, and a raspy female voice replied, "You're expecting me."

He opened the door, relieved to find that while the headache was still pretty bad, his balance was better now. The woman striding into the room on sensible yet elegant brown-red heels made him stare. She was small, rail-thin, middle-aged and stylish. Her face was pinched and stern, calling the word 'spinster' to mind. With her left hand, she pulled along a small black leather trolley. The right held a plastic bucket containing two bottles of cleaning chemicals. A sweet little feminine handbag with a strap hung over one shoulder. She looked more like someone's secretary or a troop leader in her finest than a clean-up crew, and was not at all what he had expected, but he did think he knew who she was. Lizzie had described her, once.

"You're Mister Kaplan." He did no more than mouth the name, although he was pretty sure the place was not bugged.

"Yes." She closed the door behind her, eyes already on the bathroom. "You've made a right mess of it." Her mouth widened in a pleased smile. "That'll take me the better part of two hours to clean up."

"What about…?" He gestured at the body.

"Cleansed and stored somewhere safe. He'll be picked up in a couple of minutes."

"By whom?"

"Not your concern." She shot him a glance. "Ninety minutes. Go grab a cup of coffee somewhere." She did a double take. "Clean up first. You look like a slaughterhouse." Then she looked at him again and said, "Better let me do it."

She made him sit down on the bed again, opened her girly handbag and got out a package of Kleenex, a spray of some sort and several different sizes band aids. "Did you get hit on the head? There's blood on that pillow. I assume it's yours."

"Uh. Yeah." He pointed at the wall, stained with a smear of blood. "That was me."

"Thought so. Can you focus?"

She held up a thin, immaculately manicured finger in front of his eyes, and he focused as best as he could. It took a few seconds, and looking at something cross-eyed hurt, but then the two blurry fingers merged together as one. "Yes."

"Are you feeling dizzy?"

"A little. It was worse before."

"Nauseous?"

He hesitated. Watching Shuo made him feel sick, but otherwise he was just dizzy. "No."

"Good." She went into the bathroom and came back with a wet hand towel. One of its corners was pink with blood already, but she'd obviously made some effort to wash it out. _Already stained; she's going to have it replaced or cleaned anyway, _he figured. _May as well clean me up with it as well. _"Show me. Ah, that's not too bad. Here, hold this against it. Tilt your head back so I can have a look at this cut." She set to cleaning off the dried blood with a moist tissue, pronounced the cut not serious and covered it up with a band aid the size of a small handkerchief. Once that was done, she dabbed at the back of his head with the towel until the bleeding stopped, and sprayed something onto the wound that made him scream through clenched teeth with unexpected agony. "Don't be a baby," she said, not unfriendly, and started to scrub away the blood that had trickled down his neck. Then she told him to hold out his hand and wrapped his cut fingers in bandages. She wasn't particularly gentle, but very efficient. He was blood-free, disinfected and presentable within five minutes, and after he changed his shirt she all but shooed him out of the room and out of her way.

"Why Mister?" he asked, before he left.

"Why not?" was her return question, and he left her to do her job.

It was almost two thirty, but the diner around the corner was open. He made his way there on shaky legs; two truck drivers, a group of backpackers and an older man chatting with the waitress were drinking coffee and eating left-over pie, blissfully unaware of the homicide not a hundred yards away. The lights were mercifully dim, and golden oldies were quietly playing on the radio.

Ressler found himself a seat with the wall in his back with a view of the door. The waitress, a lumpy, forty-ish woman with a tired face, seemed to be somewhat mollified by the fact that he was worse off than she, and brought him fresh orange juice with a minimum of grumbling, even though it meant she had to start up the electric orange press again.

"You been in a fight?" she asked, while he gulped down the juice in an attempt to replenished the vitamin C he'd depleted during his fight with Shuo.

"Nah. Got hit by a car earlier tonight. Asshole drove right on." It was almost disturbing how easily the lie left his lips.

"Oh my goodness!" the woman said, both her delight with this spicy bit of action and her honest pity for his misfortune clearly visible on her face. "Are you alright?"

"Fine. Just having a craving for orange juice."

"That's the adrenaline," she said, nodding, and went to get him a second glass. Ressler rewarded her with more lies, and she sucked it up like a sponge, filling up the emptiness of her boredom with the closest thing to adventure she'd ever see. Her attention, while he hadn't been seeking it, was welcome, as it distracted him from the vision of Shuo's body with its almost severed neck that kept popping up in his head. Ressler hoped to god the waitress, 'Emma', as it said on a tag on her shirt, would never see anything like that. She kept drifting back to him in between servings of coffee and snacks to the other clients, behaving in a half flirty, half motherly fashion that rather amused him despite the fact that his head was agony and all he wanted to do was sleep.

The backpackers disappeared half an hour after his arrival, and so did the elderly man, calling out 'See you tomorrow night, Em, honey!' as he left.

"He a regular?" Ressler asked, because he still had sixty minutes to go and it was all he could do not to drop his head on his arms on the table.

"Old Harold? Yeah. He's the motel's mechanic, lives right out there, in that little house with the black roof and the sun flowers in the yard." She smiled, and as was the case with so many people, the smile transformed her into someone much prettier. "He's been coming here since I was a nineteen year old, serving beer and burgers and displaying my legs and butt in hot pants." Her smile grew nostalgic. "This place was just a truck stop, then. Ah, good times."

The truckers asked for more coffee and seemed more inclined to chat, so she hung around them for a while. Ressler found a newspaper and managed to stay awake for another forty minutes, then decided that if Kaplan wasn't ready by now he'd just sleep on the bed while she was mopping the floor, and left, tipping generously.

He didn't know what to expect when he entered his room. Furiously scrubbing people? Mr Kaplan in plastic gloves? Surely not just his room, looking exactly like it had when he first opened the door three days ago. Shuo's body was gone. His blood was gone. His knife was gone. The furniture was where it should be, undamaged, and the wall, where he'd hit his head, was as spotless as the floor. It was eerie, really; it was as if he'd never killed anyone here, as if the last two hours of his life had never happened.

He checked the bathroom, but Mr Kaplan was gone as well. The towels were all intact, and all of them were a bright, innocent white. So, he noticed, was the pillow case on his bed.

_Damn, she's good_.

Despite the growing headache he made sure to check every inch of the room, but there were no Chinese in the bathtub or in the closet, and after ten minutes he sank down on the bed, utterly exhausted.

Sleep, however, no matter how badly desired, proved elusive once he'd lain down. Every time Ressler closed his eyes he imagined someone sneaking up on him, and if he did manage to drift off, that same imagination jerked him out of his REM sleep, adrenaline pumping and hands clawing for his gun. He kept seeing Shuo's face; that awful, empty face, and that horrible wound in his throat. It wasn't that he'd never killed before; he had, several times. It always affected him, but rarely this much. Maybe because Meera had died like this as well. Or maybe because when he did kill, it was as a Federal agent, and from a distance, with a gun. He rarely got to look the subject in the eye while he bled out. This was a bit too up close and personal for him to be even remotely comfortable with. Hell, these entire three days had been too up close and personal. He dozed restlessly, dreaming fitfully of Solomon baying like an animal while he fired his shotgun; of the girl he'd hit and her crying sister, and those kids; of Rainfield's face as Boscoe smiled down on him. But mostly he dreamed of blood, and when a beeping car—a garbage truck, or supply wagon—started him awake again not ten minutes after he'd finally fallen asleep he gave up. Sleep was not going to happen here, not in this room. The evidence might have been wiped away, but the memories were still here, and Shuo's ghost would not let him rest.

He sat up, leaning his aching head on his hands, dug his palms into his eye sockets. He was just so damn _tired_. And this wasn't over, not by a long shot.

_Christ. I need to __**sleep**__._ It was still dark outside, but the horizon was lightening. _I could go and check into another hotel, catch a few hours of sleep there._ But he would be alone there, as well, without backup. And suddenly he knew what he should do, and cursed himself for a fool for not thinking about it earlier.

He got dressed and splashed some water into his face. The car accident story he'd fed Emma a few hours ago seemed pretty dumb, now: the mark from Shuo's garrotte circled his throat in a vivid red-black welt, partially covered by Kaplan's three square inch band aid. _Ah, that was the car's antenna. Whipped right across my neck. A whiplash is what they call that. _He chuckled weakly at that. It was either laughter or hide gibbering in a corner, so laughter seemed the best option. During the night, the bird's egg on the back of his head had slunk a little and the cut had scabbed over, but he still winced as he probed it with his fingers. What worried him was the headache. It was still there, and only seemed to have grown worse overnight. He didn't think he had a concussion; even the slight difficulty focusing he'd had was gone and he was only slightly light-headed, but the bathroom light hurt his eyes and bending down to lace up his combat boots made his head pound so badly he unconsciously dropped his laces and pressed both hands against his temples to keep it from bursting apart.

_Ok, boots fit without the laces done._

He called Keen on his way to his bike and obviously woke her.

"Yah," she murmured into the phone, voice husky.

"You awake?"

"I am now." He heard a rustle as she sat up in bed. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah. I just need you to watch my back for a while."

"Sure. Where do you need me to go?"

"Do you…Are you at Nicky's apartment?"

"Yes. I'm there right now. Why, do you want to come over?" A two second pause, then she added, "Aaron?"

He reached the Harley, and juggled the phone from his right to his left to unlock the padlock on the chain. "Yeah. Look, I…I'll talk to you there. I just need you to…I really need to sleep. I can't do it here anymore."

"O-kay," she said slowly. "Come on over." She gave him the address again and Ressler mounted his bike and drove off into the early morning traffic.


	10. Chapter 10

It took him a little over twenty minutes to reach the modest six-story flat in the south of the suburbs. He wore the helmet, partly because he didn't want to be flagged over by any overzealous cops, but also because for once, it gave him a sense of protection rather than constriction. His poor skull felt soft and fragile, and if he somehow did happen to crash and land head-down, at least his brains would stay on the inside.

He parked the Motorcycle against a bike stand, where it dwarfed two normal bikes, secured it and walked up the steps to the flat entrance. And there it was, complete with a name tag: N. Coxx, number 49. _Gotta hand it to Reddington. He is thorough. _Just when he wanted to press the button next to her name, a commuter opened the front door, enabling Ressler to enter the flat before the door swung closed.

_Oh yeah, great security here._ But he noticed a camera in the hallway.

Nicky's apartment was on the second floor, and with one look at the stairs, he took the elevator. As it went up, the shift in gravity made his head swim, and even when the doors pinged open and he opened the door to the gallery, the feeling didn't subside. He made his wavering way to her door and pressed the bell, leaning his forehead against the door while waiting for Lizzie to open the door.

After Ressler called, Lizzie glanced at her alarm clock and sighed. Six o'clock. She'd gone to bed at one, disturbed by the police report Cooper had forwarded to her. What was it with Ressler and getting up at ungodly hours? He needed sleep? Well, so did she! But by the time he got here, it would probably be time to get up, so there was no point in postponing the inevitable.

Grumbling quietly, she took a quick shower and put on a pair of sweats and a sweater she'd found in the closet—her size, too—and turned on the coffee machine. She'd just poured herself a mug when the bell rang, and she spent a few seconds trying to figure out how to operate the speaker/com.

"Hello? Aaron?"

No reply.

_Hm. Maybe he went straight up._ She peered through the peephole and saw absolutely nothing. _Or maybe this is a setup and there are three armed goons on my doorstep. _She put down her coffee and got her gun from the top drawer of her bedside table. The chains and bolts on the door made no sound as she unlocked them. Taking a deep breath, she yanked open the door—and almost shot Ressler in the chest as he tumbled inside.

"Jesus!" She grabbed his shoulders and caught most of his weight, but he was already pushing away from her. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, fine, I was leaning against…Why are you pointing your gun at me?"

She shoved the weapon into the kangaroo pocket of her sweater. "You didn't answer the intercom. I thought…Holy crap, what happened to your neck!"

Ressler smiled faintly. He was awfully, awfully pale. "Shuo tried to kill me." The smile pulled a trifle wider on one side before fading altogether. "He did not succeed." He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing beneath the band aid. "He came pretty close, though."

"Come in." She closed the door, bolted it and ushered him into the living room and into a chair. "What happened? Jesus, you look like hell. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Something stronger?"

He shook his head, grimaced. "Painkillers, if you have them. My head is killing me."

She changed her direction from the kitchen to the bathroom, located a bottle of Tylenol and took out two. "Did he hit you?"

"He hit the wall with me."

"Was that before or after he tried to strangle you?"

"After, I think. He tried to stab me later. Things got a bit hazy after that. Thanks." He gratefully washed the pills down with a glass of water and then just sat there, dumb with exhaustion.

Lizzie sat down on the salon table in front of him. "Ressler." His head veered up and he grimaced again. "Maybe you have a concussion."

"Maybe. I don't think so, though. Besides, I don't have time to have a concussion; I need to meet Boscoe at the club at eight."

"Hm."

"What?" he asked tiredly.

"Well, only that you've been here for three days and so far people have tried to kill you twice."

"Hardly. A swat with a vacuum cleaner hose doesn't count."

"Yeah, about that, is your arm bothering you still, because you seem to be favouring it."

Ressler scowled at her. It accentuated the circles below his eyes and the lines on his forehead and next to his mouth and made him look haggard and old, far older than he actually was.

"I'm not quitting now. I can't."

"I'm not saying that you should. But you won't be any good to anyone dead."

He snorted. "I'm just tired."

"That doesn't surprise me."

He gave an exasperated huff. "What do you want from me, Keen? I can't give up. You know the stakes on this one. Besides, with Shuo gone, I have a much better chance of becoming Boscoe's associate of choice and gaining access to the shipment. Which reminds me, I have the name of the boat and the number of the container." He pulled a slip of paper out of his jeans pocket and handed it to her. "I don't know about Bani and Claus, but Solomon's got no chance to get this job, and it wouldn't surprise me if Bani pulled out any day now. This whole thing is way too big for him and he's injured pretty badly." He knuckled his forehead, eyes closed. "Did you find out anything about them?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I've got their files on my laptop." She sighed. "Might as well delete Shuo's."

That caught his attention. "You found something on him?"

"Quite a lot actually."

"Update me on it." He squeezed his eyes closed more tightly. "After I've slept for a couple of hours."

"Where did he attack you? At the motel?"

"Yes."

"And you killed him?"

"Yes. Sliced open his neck with his own little knife." His face twisted. "God, what a mess."

He went a little paler still, and Lizzie wondered if Nicky had any buckets around in case he was going to throw up, but he recovered and said, "Kind of hard to relax in that room, now."

"I can imagine," she nodded. _My presence, however, seems to be incredibly relaxing. _Ressler was zoning out again, eyes closed and his head drooping. He was falling asleep right in front of her. She touched his shoulder and he jerked awake again. No matter what he said, Shuo's attack and subsequent death must have spooked him pretty badly. "Come on, you'd better get into bed before you fall asleep in this chair."

Ressler followed her to the bedroom, sat down on the bed and looked like he was simply going to topple over unconscious, but she said, "Shoes, Don." and he obediently took them off. The laces weren't done up anyway. When he bent at the waist to place them side by side next to the bed he groaned and pushed his fingers against his forehead again.

"That bad eh?" she asked sympathetically. "Do you want me to take a look at your head?" Even from here she could see some swelling, and the reddish-black of dried blood as well. It wasn't spectacular but it did look painful.

"No. I'm fine. Kaplan looked at it and treated it on the spot."

"Kaplan? _Mister_ Kaplan?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think she's a doctor?" she asked doubtfully. It wouldn't surprise her, actually.

"I think she might've been a coroner, once." He shrugged out of his jacket but lacked the energy to take off his jeans, and crawled under the comforter almost fully clothed. Lizzie wondered, briefly, if he had noticed the cover had a pattern of nyan cats. Probably not; he was too busy burrowing. At least he kept to one side of the queen-sized bed. She hoped he wouldn't bleed on the pillow. "Reddington sent her to clean up," he continued, but his voice was deepening and trailing off. "Strange woman; she seemed to…to look forward to cleaning…it all up. She's good, though. No one would…ever..." He halted mid-sentence, mouth still half open to complete it, fast asleep.

"Huh," Lizzie said, impressed and slightly worried. "I'm going to wake you up in two hours, just so you know, and if you take too long focussing, I'm gonna call your 'dad' and tell him his 'son' is out for the count for a couple of days."

Ressler did not reply.

Sighing, Lizzie picked up her phone and sent a message to the person who, according to her contact list, was her employer.

_**Dear John, my BF was in an accident and came over to my place. Suspect head trauma and want to keep eyes on him this morning. I'll work from home. Yours Nicky.**_

Dear god, this role-playing stuff was getting on her nerves. Was anyone really going to make the effort to look into Nicky bloody Coxx and try to steal her phone, or rather, steal Elizabeth Keen's phone and find out she wasn't Nicky?

It was not yet seven am, but Cooper sent back a message within five minutes: _**All right. Let me know if you need anything.**_

Great. _ Now my bed is taken, it's only seven, I worked 'till one yesterday, and I technically don't have to start until nine today._ She looked at Ressler, lying belly-down as if someone had thrown him there and he had just landed that way. Then she looked at the mug of coffee, tepid now, in the hallway.

"Screw it," she said aloud, placed her gun back into the drawer, took off her clothes, put her night shirt on again and joined him. 

She woke up one and a half hour later, feeling well-rested and just a little bit guilty for sleeping in. As she sat up, Ressler's entire body jumped and he made a weird palatal sound, like a cat spitting.

"Take it easy," Lizzie said, placing a calming hand on his shoulder before he could sit up on his knees, "it's only me. I've got your back; you're safe."

"Huhh," he huffed, but he relaxed and was asleep again before she had left the bed.

Well, at least he was quickly roused, that was a good sign. Nevertheless, she dressed in sweats again and collected a bowl of yoghurt and muesli and her laptop to work on the bed so she could keep an eye on him or, as it turned out, to keep away the night terrors with her presence. Ressler had a lot of nightmares, as it turned out. Perhaps as many as she did. She'd never noticed that before when she slept with him, just slept with him in the same bed—but then, she rarely dreamed when sharing her bed either. Now he was simply too exhausted to recognize her presence in his sleep, reacting only when she touched him or spoke to him. He'd sleep like the dead for about an hour, breathing so slowly she once actually watched him for several minutes to see if he was still breathing at all, then enter REM sleep and start dreaming. Sometimes the nightmares woke him up after a few minutes; sometimes he remained asleep, eyes moving behind his eyelids, limbs twitching. Usually, saying his name and telling him he was safe was enough to make him settle down, but a few times talking to him carried the conversation into his dream, and holding dream conversations with Ressler was deeply odd indeed. Especially because the first time she thought he was awake, until he started muttering things about needing a bigger mop to wipe away all the blood.

Most of the time, however, Ressler was sleeping and about as responsive as a loaf of bread, and Lizzie worked on her profiles on her laptop, trying to find connections between the men and women Boscoe had been in contact with. She also requested access to the harbourmaster's files, but apparently the easiest way to find out when and where a boat would unload was consult the handwritten notes of the harbourmaster. They did use computer programs to organise everything, but those were usually filled out from an excel sheet.

Early in the afternoon she left Ressler alone for about half an hour to buy some groceries in the little supermarket half a block away. He didn't wake up during her absence, but while she was putting things into the fridge, he came out of the bedroom and shambled to the toilet, eyes half-closed and most certainly no more than half awake.

"Hey," she said, when he came back out thirty seconds later.

He halted, blinking owlishly. "Hey. Were you just out? I thought I heard the door."

"Yeah, that was me. Are you done sleeping?"

He scrubbed at his eyes, and she figured that no, he wasn't. "Why am I wearing all my clothes?"

"I don't know. Because you forgot to take them off? How's your head?"

"Full of steel wool." He gingerly touched the back of his head and winced. "I'm going back to bed, if you don't mind."

"No, be my guest."

She went back to work; on the couch, this time, since Ressler was doing fine on his own. Once in a while she looked in on him—she smiled when she saw that he had taken off his jeans and hung them neatly folded over a chair—but he seemed to be sleeping soundly.

At five, there was a knock at her door. The peep hole showed a young woman with straight brown hair in a pony tail, holding a small red cat on her arm. Curious, Lizzie opened the door.

"Oh wow, you're actually home! Hi," the woman said, clutching the cat to her chest as it tried to jump off her arm. "I don't think we've actually ever met face to face. I'm Jessica, from next door." She used her chin to point one door to the right. "Jess. I was wondering if you could look after Theo for a while. Just the rest of the weekend, really; I'll be back on Monday."

"Uh," Lizzie said. Did Nicky look after the cat more often? She probably did, if the litter and the bowls were any indication. And she also thought she had seen this woman's face among the pictures on her phone. The cat, too, was a dead ringer for the picture her phone started up with. Someone to trust, then, or at least someone Nicky thought of as a friend—the woman, that was; she wasn't sure about the cat. "Sure! He can sleep on my bed."

"Really? Great. Do you have enough food?"

She racked her brains. Had she seen cat food anywhere? "Let me check."

Both Jess and the cat followed her inside. "I like what you've done with the place," Jess said. "Isn't it weird that we never met before? I mean, I feel like I know you because of the telephone conversations, but still…Oh!" she interrupted herself, as she caught sight of the big lump in her bed that was Resser, who was _still_ asleep and really should have woken up by now. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you had anyone, hehe, uh, over."

"That's ok." She was very glad she had put on proper clothes before she went to the shop. "That's Aaron. He got into a bit of an accident, so I let him sleep in. Ah. Yes, I still have a couple of tins. And plenty of kibbles." The cat, Theo, wound around her legs, looking hungry. "I'll give him some; he'll feel right at home."

She proceeded to do just that, and the cat sniffed at them with great enthusiasm, then looked up at her with crushing disappointment, made a pawing-and-burying swipe with its front paw and disappeared into the bedroom.

"Uh," Jess said, as the cat unerringly found Ressler's back and made itself comfortable on top of him.

"Nah, let him," Lizzie waved. "It's time he got up anyway. Besides, I said Theo could sleep on my bed; I can hardly take that back now, can I?"

Jess laughed. "You're sure it's no trouble?"

"No, not at all."

"Well, if he's terrible, you have my key, so you can put him back." She made her way back to the door. "He'll like the company, though—even if you're only home in the evening."

"Don't worry about Theo," Lizzie said. "We'll be having a great time together."

Jess repeated that she would be back by Monday and left, expressing once again her joy to finally meet in person and her gratitude she could drop the cat off here. Smiling, Lizzie, closed and locked the door behind her.

The cat was a pretty good alarm clock. When she walked back to the bedroom, Ressler was sitting up in bed and the cat lay stretched out in his lap, purring, belly bared and gently pushing its hind legs against Ressler's wrist as he stroked it. He looked up at her chuckle, smiling his little lopsided smile.

"Did you just buy a cat at the door?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

"No. Apparently, Nicky cat-sits quite regularly. This is Theo, by the way."

"Bit of a slut, isn't he?" He used one hand to rub the cat under the chin and the other to caress its tummy and it rolled back and forth, purring ecstatically.

"Maybe it's a ginger thing."

"Mmm."

Humour still wasn't his strongest point, but at least he was looking more like his own stoic self, although the bruise around his neck was a rather alarming shade of purple and black, now, and the knot on the back of his head was clearly visible beneath his short hair. "How do you feel?"

"Better. Thanks."

"Head's better, too?"

He tried to lift one hand to touch the bruise, but the cat grabbed it and trapped it against its chest and then started kicking the hell out of it. Ressler huffed a laugh. "Ow. Ow, don't do that. Yes, it is. I'm still sore, but the headache is almost gone. Is that clock accurate?"

"Yes," Lizzie said. "And yes, you slept for ten hours. But you still have some time until you need to go and see Boscoe, don't you?" He nodded. "Go and take a shower. Shall I make us some pasta? I didn't really have lunch and you probably expect me to feed you."

"Not really," he said. "I don't mind picking something up when I leave. But if we want to go over your profiles," he managed to say it without sneering, "it'd be better to eat something here." He tilted his head. "You can cook, can you?"

Lizzie bristled. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because you told me that you couldn't bake an egg, not very long ago."

"I think I can manage pasta," she said coolly. "Perhaps I should experiment."

He grinned. "Mac & Cheese is fine, you know. Believe me, I'm happy _anyone's_ cooking for me."

That more or less took the wind out of her sails, so she only sputtered a little and got him a towel. Then she helped distract Theo so Ressler could get out of bed without getting mauled any further and disappeared into the kitchen while Ressler took his shower. The cat curled up on the bed in typical cat fashion and went to sleep with its head on the pillow.

She was just adding pasta sauce to the minced meat when Ressler exited the bathroom, dressed in his jeans but with his shirt clutched beneath one arm and the towel pressed against his ribs.

"Do you have any band aids? I hadn't even noticed this, but I must've towelled it open again."

He lifted the towel, and showed a long, shallow, bleeding cut on his side. "And I need some new bandages for my fingers as well."

Lizzie turned down the gas. "Is there anywhere you weren't hurt?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's just a couple of cuts. Just tell me where I can find your medical kit and I'll patch myself up."

Yeah, like that was going to happen. She snorted softly, collected her kit and wondered how she was going to get the slash on his ribs bandaged. In the end, she settled by cutting a piece of gauze into long strips, stuck that to the cut—it truly was barely more than a scratch, but it was still bleeding, and she could understand he didn't want his shirt sticking to it—and secured it in place with a double length of tape. While she was playing nurse, she also bandaged his fingers again. Here, the cuts were much deeper, and the skin surrounding the wounds had turned a disturbing purplish black.

"Shouldn't you have this looked at? What if tendons were severed?"

"I can still move 'em," Ressler said, demonstrating. "Just bind them up nice and tight."

The way those cuts gaped open when he flexed his fingers made her flinch, but she could hardly force him to go see a doctor if he didn't want to. She added a liberal dose of antiseptic cream before she wrapped him up.

"What about your head?"

"It's been knocked about enough," he said, leaning away from her. "It's fine." He did steal another Tylenol from the bottle, but only raised an eyebrow when she stared at him, and she shrugged and put the first aid kit away again. If he wanted to display moronic macho behaviour, that was his choice.

The pasta was ready ten minutes later and she was happy she'd cooked the entire package. Somehow, he managed to inhale the entire pan—minus her own modest portion—while she updated him on the backgrounds of two of Boscoe's Chosen.

"Were you hungry?" she asked innocently, after she'd described Solomon White's rise to drug fame through a career in assault and homicide and prison life; and Bani's, whose real name was Barry Amnala, modest successes in Philadelphia.

"Mm." He licked his spoon clean and stared at her screen, and at the information she'd found on Xian Shuo, the Black Ghost. "So he's from Chicago."

"Yes, and they know him pretty well down there." Lizzie got up, put half a loaf of sliced bread on the table, peanut butter and jam, and handed Ressler a knife, which he accepted absentmindedly. "Or rather, his legend is pretty well known. His sister's more famous, though. The sister's name is Lin Yin, otherwise known as The Needle. She rules _zōngpài_ _zhǐ zhēn,_ the cult of the Needle, the Chinese underground in Chicago. Shuo used to run errands for her—the violent kind. Apparently, he got too violent." She suppressed a smile as Ressler, focusing wholly on the text on the screen, made himself two PB&J sandwiches without spilling a drop, and shoved them into his mouth one half at the time. He reached for the bread again. "There's nothing on Lin Yin in the database. Nothing. We know she exists but we don't even have a picture of her. Until a couple of months ago, we didn't have anything on Shuo either, but apparently he was traced back to a massive homicide. He got sloppy. The Needle and the Black Ghost had a great clash a couple of months ago. Twelve people dead—five civilians, the rest known members of the cult."

"So Shuo wanted either the drugs of the money it would bring him to compete against his sister," Ressler hypothesized, swallowing the first half of his third sandwich. He licked some jam from his thumb. "But how did Boscoe know how to reach him?" He picked up the second half. "I get how he found Bani, Solomon and Claus. They all have some renown. But Shuo literally didn't exist before now."

"Maybe Blofeld thought it might be a good idea to forge a tie between him and the ambitious second in command of an Asian faction."

"Hmm." He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. She had no idea where he was leaving all that food. No one would ever call Ressler slender, but he didn't have an ounce of fat and by now he'd devoured about a pound of pasta and four slices of bread, and it just kept disappearing into him as if he didn't even notice he was eating. _Well, he did sleep all day, and didn't eat anything…_Still, if he kept this up, she'd have to shop for bread again in the morning.

"What?" she asked.

"What if it wasn't Blofeld who attended Shuo on the fact that a massive drug shipment was due to arrive in Baltimore?"

She immediately knew what he was talking about. _Reddington. _As a matter of fact, that was something she'd considered as well, after her chat with Red yesterday. "He wouldn't."

Ressler snorted. It sounded a bit odd with his mouth full. He swallowed. "Yes he would." He began slathering peanut butter on a fresh slice of bread.

"He wouldn't do anything that would get you killed," Lizzie rephrased. "Red wants Blofeld; he wouldn't compromise the mission by…"

"The fact that he employs them doesn't mean that Reddington controls the people he knows," Ressler interrupted her. The old anger that always seemed part of him whenever he was dealing with Reddington showed in the furrows in his forehead, and he slapped another slice almost aggressively on top of the one on his plate. "If there's one thing I've learned since I joined the Post Office, it's that Reddington ALWAYS has his own agenda. Reddington may not have planned for Shuo to kill me, but he wouldn't shed any tears over my dead body either."

Lizzie wasn't so certain about that. Ever since Anslo Garrick had infiltrated the Post Office, she'd got the feeling that Red had almost started to appreciate Ressler. Kind of like she had, only for different reasons. She knew better than to try to defend Red to Ressler, though, and simply shrugged. To distract him, she said, "If we want to find out where the container is going to be stored when the ship comes in, we'd best chat with the harbourmaster himself. His name is Nicholas Hardy."

"If we talk to him, people will know."

"Alternatively," Lizzie nodded, "we can break into his office and see if we can find something on his computer. Or in his…what is it called? Log book?"

"I know very little about boats," Ressler said, and frowned again, as if that admission reminded him of something unpleasant. "What about Skinny's whereabouts?"

"The cops have been staking out two addresses. I haven't heard from them yet. I'll call you when I hear something."

Ressler nodded. He popped the last bit of his last sandwich into his mouth and read Claus' background, and the profile she'd drawn up for him while he was chewing. "Claus may want to make a deal with me," he said finally. "We get along just fine."

Lizzie shivered. "He's a scary piece of shit. Oh, that reminds me, before you start getting all buddy buddy with Claus… that woman who was raped during your raid? You wondered if they'd swabbed her, right? Well, whoever raped her, also cut off all the first digits of her right hand."

"_What?_"

"The attacker wore a condom, and he cut off…"

"I heard you." He rubbed his forehead. "Jesus."

"No DNA. The description matches Claus', so we can pick him up on that, but we don't have any hard evidence."

"Fuck." His mouth tightened.

"Yeah. Cooper sent me the report at eleven yesterday evening." She placed a hand on his arm, put it somewhere else when he flinched and she realized she'd laid it on his bruise, and said, "Be _careful_ around him. He may look like a jovial guy, but he's every bit the monster Shuo was."

"He's only a monster to women," Ressler said quietly. "He wouldn't dare stand up to me. Besides, if he so much as looks at me funny, I'm putting a bullet between his teeth." But he almost looked sad, as if he was disappointed the drug dealing thug really turned out to be a drug dealing thug and nothing more.

He shoved his chair back. "I'd better get going. Tell Boscoe that Shuo's out."

"Are you going to tell him you killed him?"

"I don't see why not," Ressler said, voice hard. He got up, blanched and steadied himself with his hands on the table.

"Ressler?"

"I'm fine, just got up too quickly."

Lizzie wanted to tell him to be careful again, or perhaps to not go at all and stay here until he could stand up without feeling dizzy. But she said nothing; if she'd been in his place, she wouldn't have appreciated him telling her to back off either, and after a few seconds he raised his head, found his balance in order, grabbed his jacket and left.


	11. Chapter 11

Ressler drove straight to the club. He had to take a different route because the police had cordoned off the road for some reason. Nevertheless he was early, but the porter was there already to let him in Outside.

"Boscoe in yet?"

"No," the man said. He locked the door again. His eyes drifted to Ressler's neck. "Trouble?"

"Not anymore."

"Ah. Beer?"

Ressler accepted a bottle and took a small sip. His brain was shaken enough as it was, he didn't need to addle it any further. He paced around the roof garden, absently scratching at the tape Nicky had stuck onto his side. His brief stay inside the club, long enough only to take the stairs to Outside, had filled his head with smoke and made his blood throb in the wound on the back of his head. Gratefully, he took a few deep breaths of the relatively fresh air up here.

The roof had a pretty nice view, he discovered. He hadn't even noticed the previous times he'd been here. Too busy snorting coke and playing poker.

He scoffed at himself.

After another ten minutes of pacing, he heard the door open again, and inclined his head in greeting when Boscoe entered the garden, followed by Solomon.

"Stone," Boscoe said, surprised. "You're here early. I hadn't expected anyone yet, today, and here's the two of you."

"I'm only here to tell you that Shuo's no longer a contender."

Solomon frowned; his eyes, as well, found the welt on Ressler's neck. Ressler repressed the urge to rub at it. "Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill him?"

"That's none of your fucking business, White. He's out."

"If you make a habit of killing the competition, I think I'd like to know," the big man rumbled. "I'm not sure it'd be considered…fair." His tongue flicked out again and licked his lip.

_If it is considered that, fair, that is, I'm sure you wouldn't mind taking care of some competition yourself, eh, Solomon?_

"Let's say that I don't appreciate people trying to off me in the middle of the night," Ressler said, meeting his eyes coldly.

"He attacked you?" Boscoe asked. He scratched his beard. "All's fair in love and war, although this ain't love, and I wouldn't call it a war."

Ressler clenched his jaws. Boscoe had just openly given Solomon permission to kill the other Chosen, if he wanted to. He watched that pale pink tongue dart along that full dark lower lip, felt himself snarling.

"You just made it a war."

"If one of you is dead, it had already become one," Boscoe said. He turned around when the door opened again, and Claus sauntered into the garden as well.

"Who's dead?" Claus asked.

Ressler noticed the end of a switch knife sticking out of his pocket. He wondered if that was the knife he'd used to cut off the woman's fingers. His own fingers curled into his palm to form fists. Aaron, however, had accepted Claus more or less as an ally, and relaxed his stance a little as the man came closer. The two conflicting impressions made his head hurt. He took another swallow of beer, blinking.

"Shuo," Boscoe informed him. "And now we're all here, I might as well tell you that Bani has decided to withdraw as well."

"Is he dead as well?" Claus asked.

"No. But he is in no condition to continue and so he officially backed out."

"Ah. So it's just the three of us left, eh?" He smiled at Aaron and shot Solomon a tentative grin. "Any of you know when the boat'll arrive exactly yet?"

"The information doesn't seem to be available yet," Solomon said. He shrugged. "I have nothing to do this evening. Shall we play cards again?"

"Sure," said Claus. "I wanted revenge anyway. You in too, Stone?"

The last thing Ressler wanted was to play poker with these murdering bastards. But Aaron took over and nodded before he could refuse. And when they were playing and his head started to ache more and more from the smoke billowing from Claus', Boscoe's and Solomon's cigarettes, he resorted to cocaine again if only to stay focused.

At least cocaine was a hell of a painkiller.

Pity it only lasted for about half an hour.

He was just thinking about quitting and taking his winnings—he could win a poker game with a concussion, he'd done so before, and he could win it half-asleep, totally wasted and on severe pain medication—when his phone beeped. He cast a final glance at his cards—a great combination of worthless and nothing—threw them down on the table and answered it.

"Hey Nicky."

"Hey. Are you still at the club?"

"Yes."  
"I think we may have located him."

He did not get up or lower his voice. Claus, Boscoe and Solomon were still playing. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. But there's been a major accident downtown and all manpower's been diverted totthat. Besides, I thought you might want to come."

"I do."

"I'll come and pick you up by car. Your Harley's too conspicuous. You can retrieve it later."

"Ok. I'll see you in a bit. I'll meet you downstairs."

When he put his phone down, Claus was raking in money, grinning widely. "You can get called more often, Stone! It's good for profit."

"You had nothing," Boscoe said, pointing at his cards.

"Eh, I'd have bluffed my way through." He meaningfully tucked his phone away. "I'm off in a bit."

Claus looked at him with a shrewd expression on his face. "Your lovely little girlfriend."

"Yeah," Aaron said, even as the small hairs at the back of Ressler's neck stood up.

"You haven't introduced us yet. Not properly."

"No. I haven't."

Solomon chuckled. After a while, Claus grinned as well. "Well, do you have time for one more game?"

"Sure."

They played, and Ressler let Claus win. But when he went back inside to meet up with Nicky, the man followed him, saying he wanted beer from the tap and not from a bottle, and so he found Claus hovering when she walked into the club.

She wasn't wearing hot pants this time, he noticed with mild regret. The wind was cold, though; it made sense to wear jeans, and a stake-out with a possible chase and arrest would be conducted easier in high flat boots than in stiletto heels. Nicky was, however, wearing her little taupe jacket with the seductive cleavage, and he had to suppress a smile as she sashayed into the bar.

She briefly fell out of her role while she was looking for him and scanned the crowd with the eye of a cop—maybe because she was an FBI agent, like him.

_Whoa._

Had he just thought of Keen as Nicky?

Claus used the second Ressler struggled to regain his composure to walk forward and call Nicky's name. She turned to him, her eyes narrowing briefly before she bared all her teeth in a radiant smile. With dimples. God, Keen had _dimples_. Ressler had never seen her smile like that—not at him, in any case.

_Maybe because it's a fake smile._

"Hey there," Claus said. He held out his hand and Nicky—Keen, _Keen_ took it and shook it, but he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. "I don't think Aaron introduced us properly. I'm Claus Sacher. My friends call me Santa Claus."

Lizzie tittered. She pulled at her hand, but Claus held it clasped loosely in his own. "Really?" she asked, her voice pitched one octave higher than usual. "And do you have a big bag with lots of candy?"

_Jesus Christ, Keen._

"If you're good, I might," Claus said with a winning smile. Again Ressler was struck by how normal the man seemed, how utterly _pleasant_, almost boyish. If he hadn't _known_ the man was a rapist, he never would have guessed. _And neither would the woman chatting to him._

He took a step forward and put an arm around Keen, pulling her away from Claus so he was forced to let go of her hand.

"Hello sweetheart." It came out like a threat, toneless and dark, not as an endearment—probably because he never used endearments, never had, as people had names for a reason, and he wouldn't know how to call a woman 'darling' or 'sweetie' if she had a gun aimed at his chest; and Lizzie looked up at him with pity, puzzlement and amusement.

"Aaron. Honey." Her voice bubbled with mirth. "I was just talking to Claus—it was Claus, right? He's one of the men you do business with, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Claus said. "Me and Aaron, we're about to make a sweet little deal. And then you come along." He leaned forward. "And you distract him!"

"Sorry," Lizzie said without a hint of apology. "I'll bring him back in one piece when I'm finished with him." She put her arm around Ressler's waist and slapped her hand onto his butt, then squeezed him, hard, as he stiffened with indignation. Her dimples were evil.

"Let's roll," Ressler gritted out between clenched teeth.

"Have a good time," Claus said cheerfully. "Hey, Stone, will you be here tomorrow?"

"If I find a certain shipping manifest, I will. If not…" He forced himself to smile, "Only if I need spare change."

Claus placed a hand on his own chest. "Owww. And here I was thinking I beat you."

"Maybe you did, Claus. Maybe you did."

Lizzie dug her fingers into his ass again. "Shall we go, honey?"

Once outside, she released him and began to chuckle. Ressler, who had an inkling as to why she was laughing, or rather, who she was laughing at, scowled angrily. She glanced at his face and grinned, showing those dimples again. "I love it when you go all protective terminator on me."

"He's a…"

"I know what he is." She beeped open the car. "I can handle him." Ressler grunted. "I see what you mean with getting along with him, though. He seems nice. His mugshot's way creepier."

"If he touches you again I'll shoot him." He only became aware he'd spoken out loud when he noticed the smirk on Keen's face. But he didn't know how to explain to her that he wasn't being protective, so he kept silent. At least he didn't think he was. It was more that watching Claus kiss a woman's hand, Lizzie's hand, knowing that he'd cut off the fingers of some poor woman he'd raped while Ressler was busy punching innocent girls in the stomach, disturbed him so much it made his skin crawl. So did the fact that, despite knowing he had done so, he still couldn't help liking the man.

They reached the car and he got into the passenger's seat, brow furrowed and mouth set. Lizzie took her place behind the wheel, closed the door and regarded him for a moment, her smile fading.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes." _I have to stop being Aaron Stone. It's getting ridiculous._

She rolled her eyes. "Do you have a headache? I brought…"

"No. Can we go?"

"Have you been using again? Your eyes are huge."

He slammed down his hand on the dashboard. "Would you shut up and drive?"

She regarded him with her lips pressed together and her eyebrows raised. Ressler clenched his jaws and stared hard at the blower. Finally, she sighed, put the key in the ignition and drove off.

Again, they had to take detour because of the accident Nicky—the accident _Keen_ had spoken of. While they were crawling through the traffic Ressler badly missed his Harley. Maybe it was loud and flashy, but at least it wouldn't have any trouble weaving through the line of cars clogging the road.

On the other hand the extra time spent in the car gave him some time to separate his dual identities and force his temper down. He kept his voice carefully light when he asked, "This accident…Do you know what happened?"

"A truck with something flammable," Lizzie replied coolly.

"And what happened to the truck?" Ressler grated out, irritation flaring again. "Do you think it might be connected somehow?"

"No." She drove up to a blinking traffic light and turned right, where she was stuck behind another row of cars. She sighed. "No, I don't think it's related to Blofeld, or the shipment, or Skinny. It was just bad luck. The truck jack-knifed, capsized, its container tore and the fluids inside flooded the street. Then another car hit the truck and burst into flame. The explosion took out two other cars and damaged the office building next to it. Ten dead and counting, twenty-four wounded when I left home."

"Our arrival hasn't brought Baltimore any luck," Ressler muttered. He leaned back in his chair and watched the streets crawl by. Some of the irrational anger still coiled in his belly, but he was feeling a little bit more civilized. "Where do you think they're keeping Skinny?"

"One of the addresses on your list. It's a storage room owned by the Lion's Den. It's listed as a beer barrel cleaning station, you know, so they can be refilled, but there's no company attached to it. It's just storage space."

"Why didn't the police just open it up, then?"

"Because it's being guarded."

"_Guarded_?"

"Yes. Officially it's a storage facility, but it has a tiny office in front of it. When the plainclothes went to check it out this afternoon there was a man inside who told them they needed to make an appointment to see the manager. And because we told him not to draw attention to them or to us in case Skinny was being kept there, they reported it and kept surveillance on it." She turned right and made a pleased sound when the traffic thinned out. "There was another place they thought might be a hideout, but it was just another storage room." She caught his eye. "Built exactly like the one we're going to now, with a separate little room in front like an office."

"Sounds promising. Are the cops still there?"

"They agreed to wait until we arrived," Lizzie nodded. "But they're required elsewhere. They'll leave when we get there and they've briefed us."

"Fine with me."

They drove in silence the rest of the way.

The police, two women who had both done concessions to fit into the men's world of the police force, were staking out the storage facility from a grey Volkswagen. They seemed horribly conspicuous to Ressler, but he guessed that in the dark, no one would notice them. As Lizzie drove by, giving them a nod through the window, they followed and halted a block away.

"Special Agent Liz Keen," Lizzie said, showing her badge to the woman as she came out of her car and leaned against the window, her own badge in her hand. "Anything?"

"Detective Susan Moore. And no, not really. The place's been pretty quiet for the past three hours. As far as we've been able to tell, the watch is changed every four hours. Of course, we've only been here since three, but so far they're pretty regular."

"A different person each time?" Ressler asked.

Susan Moore nodded. Her concession to being a female cop had been to cut her hair very, very short. "Yeah. The first one remained in side all the time. This one goes out once in a while to have a smoke and stretch his legs. The next one should turn up in an hour or so, at ten."

"Did you get a court order to search the place?"

"I requested one as soon as we found out the place was guarded," Susan said, "but it hasn't come in yet. Things have been pretty hectic with the explosion and everything."

"Ok. Thanks," Lizzie said. "I appreciate the effort."

Moore looked slightly surprised, as if she'd expected the FBI to be ungrateful dicks. "Sure," she said. "No problem."

The cops drove off, Lizzie circled the block and parked not far from where the women had been standing and got out a pair of night binoculars. Not that she really needed them from this distance; she had a pretty clear sight of the door to the storage place. The whole block consisted of these square, container-like buildings, with about five in a row. The doors of the first row of rooms faced the backs of the next row, ensuring a maximum of privacy.

Ressler and Lizzie settled down to watch the place. As Susan Moore had already mentioned, the current occupant of the building came out every twenty minutes or so to smoke a cigarette, inhaling with the total concentration and desperation of a man trying to quit but unable to do so.

"I wonder why he doesn't smoke inside," Lizzie murmured.

"I don't know. Smoke detectors?"

"Maybe. Or maybe he's promised himself he won't smoke inside."

"Because he's trying to quit, you mean."

She shot him a look. "You noticed that as well?"

Ressler regarded the glowing dot in the darkness. _And that's why I have so little use for profilers. Anyone with some observational skills can see what they can._ He kept his mouth shut, however, and only nodded, as he figured he'd barked enough at her already and it wasn't her fault he sucked at maintaining distance during undercover work.

"How long did you want to sit here and watch?"

"Not long. But I'm hoping someone will come by who isn't such an obvious unimportant schmuck."

"You're hoping for Blofeld himself?"

He shrugged. "Or Boscoe. He said he'd be at the club from eight to ten. He might need to show up here."

"Or go home and spend the rest of the evening with his beautiful girlfriend and his son."

Ressler sighed. "Or that, yeah." He checked his watch. "I want to go in before midnight."

"Force?"

"If necessary. We can't wait until that search warrant comes through. If Skinny is in there and he's still alive, we're getting him out tonight. Cooper can get it cleared afterwards, if necessary."

Lizzie nodded, then sighed. "We should've picked up some coffee."

Ressler smirked. "At least tell me you got us donuts."

"I have some low-fat carrot cake slices."

"Damn. And here I was hoping for a cop gut."

"Sorry."

The guard stubbed out his cigarette and went back inside. Lizzie and Ressler leaned back in their seats and watched the door.

Harold Cooper sighed as his phone went off and showed the caller's identity as Nick's Pizza.

Nick's Pizza always gave him heartburn.

He steeled himself, picked it up and said, "Reddington."

"Good evening, Harold."

"To what occasion do I owe this personal call?"

The smile in Red's voice carried all the way through the telephone. "Well, as you haven't left the police station, despite the late hour, I might add—you're such a diligent man, Harold!—and I thought I might spare the local detectives a heart attack, which some of them certainly would have got if I were to walk in there in person, I thought it might be better to contact you this way."

"Did you have anything to do with the explosion downtown?"

"Harold." Reddington sounded hurt. "I know you have no fondness for me but is it really necessary to suspect me of everything that ever goes wrong?"

Cooper gritted his teeth. "So are you responsible?"

"No. If anyone is responsible, I'd say it's the driver of that truck. He's obviously an incapable driver."

"So what do you want? Do you have any leads?"

"Leads? I thought Lizzie and Agent Ressler were pursuing leads. No. I'm calling you with a different purpose."

"Yes?"

"I have Xian Shuo's body all wrapped up and ready to go like a post order package," Reddington said. "And unless you think you have need of it; I have no quarrel with his family, so I'd like to send him back to his mother and sister in Chicago."

Cooper considered. "If you do that, they'll know for certain that he is dead. One of his clan might come and seek revenge. For Agent Ressler's safety, I'd hold on to the body for a few more days."

"Trust me, Harold, Shuo's family knows he's dead. Keeping the body away from them will not make them more inclined to accept his death without retaliation."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I know his sister," Reddington said.

"His sister." He had read Keen's report on Shuo and recalled the sister had been mentioned, but also that very little was known about her.

"Yes. Fearsome woman. You can be thankful that it was Shuo and not Lin Yin who decided to insert herself into Boscoe's operation."

Cooper exhaled, very slowly and away from the telephone. "Could you please be a little more specific? What do you know about these people?"

"Enough to know I'd rather have them neutral than opposing me," Reddington said evasively. Then he relented, "I know Lin Yin and Shuo have not been seeing eye to eye for some years, and I expect that Shuo did not have his sister's approval for joining the Baltimore dealers. He was probably hoping to gain enough influence to either start his own little emporium, or get her out of the equation altogether."

"That's a lot of speculation."

"True, but I know I'm right. Lin Yin will be saddened by her brother's death, but she won't regret it, and she certainly won't dirty her needles with Agent Ressler's blood, especially after receiving the body cleaned and laid out respectfully."

Cooper blinked. "Her needles?"

"Don't ask," Reddington whispered through the phone.

"I'd like to do an autopsy."

"That is not what Lin Yin will consider respectful."

Raymond Reddington, as far as Harold Cooper was concerned, was one of the most aggravating people in existence. "We don't get our hands on the body of a Chinese gang member all that often. His tattoos could give us a wealth of information we might need later."

"I can give you photos of his body," Reddington replied. "Every inch of him. But I urgently recommend you to release his body to his family in order to keep hostility to a minimum." That was rather magnanimous of him, laying the choice with Cooper while having possession of the body himself. Cooper gritted his teeth.

"Fine. Do what seems best to you."

"Thank you, Harold. You made the right choice." The sincerity in his voice made Cooper want to smash the phone on the floor and stamp on it with his foot until it died. His iron self-control being what it was, he called up sarcasm and said "How could I not take your advice to heart?"

Reddington laughed. "I'll send you the pictures in an hour."

"Do you have pictures of his sister as well?"

"God, no. I wouldn't be alive if I did. Good evening, Harold."


	12. Chapter 12

The block of storage rooms lay in a quieter part of town and was not often frequented. During the time Ressler and Lizzie sat waiting in the car, they only saw civilian activity twice. The first time a man with a truck came by, stopped at the first door in the row, and unloaded a couple of big boxes of something. He left not five minutes afterward, as if unwilling to linger.

The second time, some time after ten, when the guard had changed and the cigarette-smoking man had left, a woman crossed the street, hips swaying and high-heeled boots clicking on the pavement. Long, dark blonde hair curled on her shoulders. She wore a loose little skirt that swished attractively with every step she took, and a short dark leather jacket belted tightly around her narrow waist. Her face was pretty if a bit haunting in the glare of her cell phone; she was texting as she walked.

Ressler tensed in his seat. "Is that Anasenko Yevgenieva?"

Lizzie squinted in the dark. "No. No, I don't think so."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Anasenko is smaller. I've never seen her before."

"She's wearing heels."

Lizzie frowned in irritation. "It's not her, Ressler. Trust me." She lifted her night goggles as the door to the warehouse opened and their man poked out his head. The woman stepped over to him, and he hastily came out and closed the door behind him. A cell phone blinked out in his left hand; apparently he'd recently used it, presumably to receive a message from the woman, who put her own phone in the pocket of her jacket.

"They're arguing," Ressler established.

"He seems happy to see her, though." She shot a picture of the pair of them with a camera she had stowed away in the glove department for that reason.

"I'd be happy to see that girl dressed like that, too, if I were him. But not here."

"She's saying something..." Intently, she studied their faces through the binoculars. She had a relatively clear view of the woman's mouth. "Something about a date? Forgot…he forgot they had a date? What an idiot, he forgot he had a date with her?"

"Hey, it can happen." She shot him a look, but his face was impassive and she realized he would be exactly the kind of man who'd let his job interfere with any plans his girlfriend, or, say, fiancée would have made. Then Ressler smirked and nodded at the couple in front of the storage room. "Look at that, she's brought out the waterworks. He's lost now."

Indeed, the woman seemed noticeably distressed. Lizzie couldn't see if she were actually crying, but her body language was angry and she turned her body away from the man on guard with a dramatic swing.

"Come on," Ressler muttered. "Go with her. Find a hotel room."

"She wouldn't…" Lizzie started, then stopped as the man grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards him, pleading with her. Her attempt to pull free from him was both pathetic and insincere. "Oh."

"Told you so. Come on, she's hot, take her with you." He grunted as the man enfolded the girl in an embrace and kissed her. "Crap. Jesus, man, have some decency."

But decency was apparently far from both their minds as the woman pressed her body against the guard and shamelessly rubbed up against him. He, in turn, clutched her to him, ground against her and enfolded her face with his hands, kissing her deeply. His hands ran up underneath her skirt and he pushed her against the door he had just closed behind him.

"Oh, fuck," Lizzie moaned, and Ressler said, "Yeah, that seems to be the gist of it."

They both watched as the woman hitched up her skirt and pushed her panties down. She stepped out of them with one leg, and the man hiked up that leg and thrust into her, his own pants riding low on his hips but nowhere near off. The woman braced one arm against the wall, but nevertheless her back hit the door again and again, driving out her breath in uncomfortable gushes.

Lizzie looked away from his clenching and unclenching ass and her swinging foot, embarrassed. Ressler kept his eyes on them, face blank. It was hard and graceless and fast, over in about twenty seconds.

"Damn," Ressler deadpanned, when the man pulled away, tucking himself in, and the woman neatly stepped into her panties again, "What a date. That must have been fan_tas_tic."

Lizzie couldn't help herself; she laughed out loud, and had to cover her mouth with both hands when laughter kept bubbling out of her. Still keeping an eye on their subject, Ressler shot her a few surreptitious glances.

"Oh come on," he said, with that lopsided little smile of his, when she was still chortling a full minute later, "I wasn't that funny."

"No," she wheezed, "no, you weren't, really. Fan_tas_tic. Hee!"

Ressler sighed in irritation, not with her, but with the couple at the warehouse, who were now looking around shamefully. "Oh for god's sake, go clean up, man. Let her go to the bathroom. At least offer her a tissue or something."

Lizzie giggled. But she did notice: "He doesn't let her in."

"No."

"Why on earth would you prefer to pounce on your girlfriend outside in the open and not boink her discretely inside on the desk?"

"We need to get inside that building." Ressler said, frustrated. "They need to leave."

They watched the couple for another couple of moments. The girl was talking to her lover again, trying to convince him of something. He shook his head, but his resolve was obviously wavering. He glanced at the door, uncertainly. The woman yelled something at him, her hands fluttering. She wiped at her face. Her whole body expressed cold fury, hurt and shame.

"You're losing her, man," Ressler said, willing him to abandon his post. "Look, there, there she goes. Moron."

The woman made another, very clear 'well fuck you then, even though you wound me so' gesture, turned on her high-heeled heel and flounced off.

And then… "He's going after her!" Lizzie exclaimed. She sent up a silent thank you to the god of love and hormones and mirrored Ressler as he tensed in his seat. She made sure her phone was set to silent before sliding it back into her back pocket.

"You've got your lockpicks?" The man had carefully locked the door behind him.

"Yes." She opened the car door and stepped out, closed it very softly behind her. Ressler did the same. Lizzie left the car unlocked, dropped the key into her jacket.

The man had reached the woman and no longer paid any attention to the storage room.

"Let's roll," Ressler said again, and they hurried to the warehouse door.

Lizzie picked it easily.

They quickly slipped inside.

Ressler went in first, weapon drawn.

The first thing he saw was a tiny room partitioned off from the rest of the space by a thin plasterboard wall. It held a desk with a phone, a computer screen, a mouse and a keyboard.

_Yeah_, he thought, _I guess that woulda been kind of crowded. She had pretty long legs_.

The plasterboard wall had a door. He tried it, but it was locked and he nodded at Keen to do something about it. Once she had cracked the lock, he slipped inside first, blinking at the dimness. Lizzie ducked in after him.

The room behind the door was unlit, but not totally dark; opaque glass panels set high in the wall cast a faint light. He blinked his eyes several times to acclimatize to the gloom. He estimated the room to be about 15 by 24, the floor was bare concrete and stacked barrels and racks holding boxes and tools barred sight to the other wall. It smelled strange. Musty, with some unpleasant, sharp scent in the background. Ignoring the smell that made the back of his neck prickle for now, Ressler carefully moved forward.

He thought he could hear someone breathing. The scrape of the soles of his boots on the floor seemed awfully loud, amplified as it was by the bare walls and floor. He edged around a rack, followed it and peered through the stock it was holding. And saw something.

He held up his hand, and Lizzie froze behind him.

The sound of breathing, wheezy and irregular, became louder.

Ressler came to the end of the rack, stepped around the corner and stood face to face with Skinny.

Or rather, what was left of him.

He managed to keep the expletives rising to his lips inside, but his eyes widened and he bit his tongue, hard, to keep silent. And swallowed. All of a sudden, his head began to pound again.

The man had been _skinned_.

He hung from the ceiling, suspended from a rope that was looped around his chest, underneath his arms. The arm Ressler had shot to pieces was neatly bandaged, and both his wrists were wrapped in tape as well, but the rest…Skinny was naked, and the skin of his chest had been neatly cut along his collar bones and then pulled down, carefully separated and sliced away from his chest and abdomen, and left to hang down to his thighs like some strange and gruesome kind of skirt. His bare muscles gleamed wetly in the dim light, bits of ribcage showing through. His bare feet dragged in a pool of his own blood and excretions.

He was alone, the rest of the building seemed clear, but a stool stood against the wall, enabling anyone who might be interested to sit down and appreciate the view at ease.

"Stay back," Ressler said harshly, stopping Lizzie from advancing with a hand thrust blindly back into her direction.

Christ in heaven, he was _breathing_. That ravaged chest was expanding and collapsing. Skinny was alive.

"Is it Rainfield?" Lizzie had neatly stepped around his hand and he had one second to either bodily throw her away from the horror in front of him, or let her see it.

"For fuck's sake," he tried, desperately pawing at her, "stay…"

But she'd already seen him, and her gasp of shock turned into a retching sound as she stared, eyes bulging, at the abomination hanging from the ceiling.

"Ohmygod," she whispered, then covered her mouth with her hand.

Ressler gently turned her around. "Take a deep breath. Call 911. Then Cooper."

"911? Is…is he still alive?"

"Yes. Call 'em." He took a few steps forward, wrinkling his nose at the stench of blood and piss and disinfectant and pain growing thicker the closer he approached Skinny. Dimly, he heard Keen speak to the 911 operator. He didn't want to look too closely at the hideous wounds, but he needed to know what the situation was.

Skinny was smaller than him, so Ressler had to crouch down—carefully avoiding stepping into the puddle of blood—in order to look him in the face. The man's head hung on his skinless breastbone, chin sticky with blood. Blood had also run from his mouth, but his handsome face, now grey and gleaming with sweat, had been left untouched. Skinny's eyes were slits, but when Ressler gently thumbed one open, he stared straight into his hugely dilated pupils.

_Awake. Fuck. But high as a kite. That explains why he's still alive. God, I hope he hasn't come down from this._ He couldn't even imagine the agony of returning to a body this mangled. Ressler moistened his dry lips and tried, "Skinny?"

No reaction. Thank god. He didn't know what he would have done if Skinny had answered him.

When he stepped back, Keen was already speaking to Cooper, explaining the situation and describing the crime scene.

"He's not looking well, sir," she spoke into the phone, still carefully turned away from Skinny. "No, protective custody won't do. He needs to go to the hospital. Yes. Flayed. I don't know, I called them not five minutes ago, but with the chaos of that explosion downtown…

'Ressler? Do you think he'll hang on for another hour?" Ressler shrugged. He had no idea. "We'll stay with him until we're certain he's safe. But we don't want to…No, we'll leave as soon as Rainfield's been picked up." She cast another look into Ressler's direction. "Yes, I'll tell him."

"Tell me what?" Ressler asked, when Keen put the phone away. Skinny's erratic breathing was grating on his nerves; he almost wished the man would stop doing it already. He took another step away from him, then hesitated. Should they take him down? Would that make him more comfortable? _He doesn't have any skin on his front. I doubt he'll be comfortable in __**any**__ position._

"To stay at my…at Nicky's place tonight."

Ressler shook his head. "No. I don't want to digress any more from Aaron Stone's behaviour than I already have."

"Staying at your girlfriend's place isn't all that strange, _Aaron_," Lizzie returned. "And it would make me feel a hell of a lot better knowing that you won't be on your own in that motel room, being the perfect sitting duck for anyone who wants to take you out."

Ressler opened his mouth to tell her not to be absurd, suddenly had a flashback first to Shuo's bloodless face and then to Solomon White and his shotgun, and subsided. He remembered the eager way the man had licked his lip after Boscoe had said that all was fair in love and war. Last night felt like a nightmare. His nightmares might be persistent, but they faded quickly when he was awake. His head still hurt, though, and he hadn't forgotten the misery of those hours of pain and paranoia very early in the morning. He gave a brief nod.

"Ok. I need a change of clothes, though. And my bike."

"I'll drop you off at the Lion's Den. Pick up your bags, then come back to my place. What are you doing?"

Ressler snapped another shot with his phone. "Taking pictures. I might need 'em later. And I'm not sure the police will arrive before the paramedics, and they sure as hell won't wait until we've got a pair of photographers ready before giving first aid." Nevertheless he felt slightly sick when he zoomed in on the maimed young man.

Lizzie, staring at Skinny, went pale and hastily looked away. "God," she whispered. "if I just imagine how much _pain_ he must be in…" She pressed her fist against her mouth again.

_Think of it as an ironic word joke_, Ressler wanted to quip cynically, but another look at her face made him decide to say something else. "Why don't you take a breath of fresh air, huh? Just make sure that guard hasn't returned with his girlfriend. Don't get seen."

"Yes," she choked out, and quickly walked away. Outside, the first wails of an ambulance siren came into hearing.

Ressler was right: the paramedics arrived before the police did, and wasted no time taking Skinny down, putting an IV into him and hauling him off to the hospital. Ressler gave them both his and Liz's number to call the moment, the very _moment_, he pressed, the man regained consciousness. His insistence earned him a few hostile glances, but in the end he got the promise they would be notified when Skinny woke up.

Just as the ambulance was pulling out, the police arrived, and Ressler, to his enormous chagrin, had to call Cooper awake again to make sure he and Lizzie weren't taken to the police station, as neither of them had their badge on them.

Lizzie was happy to notice that she wasn't the only person who got somewhat shifty-eyed when Ressler went full-out pissed off on her. The poor detective, a gentle-faced man called Kinney, already somewhat unsettled by the terrible scene with its stink of piss and blood and even further intimidated by the glowering bastard with the tattoos and the nasty choke marks on his neck, positively wilted beneath Ressler's glare as he handed back the cell, and apologized profusely. Lizzie soothed things as best as she could, hoping to keep the relationship between the FBI and the local PD at least workable, and managed to steer Ressler out before he worked himself up to a full temper tantrum.

Funny enough, she didn't feel the annoyance she normally felt when he was being impossible. Not this time. She knew exactly how he felt. Only her natural reaction wasn't to bite people's head off. Neither was Ressler's, but she guessed she could cut him some slack after the last couple of days.

They made it to the car without being seen, she hoped, under the covers of darkness, and half an hour's drive through traffic later she dropped him off at the Lion's Den.

"I might be home later than you," she sighed, when he drove up to her on the Harley.

He nodded. He hadn't donned the helmet this time, and she thought he looked almost alarmingly badass with his threatening scowl and the Dyna between his legs. "I'll just ring the bell. If you don't answer I'll wait outside."

"Ok. Be careful."

He scoffed. "Yeah. I'll need to. See you later, Nicky." He blinked, shook his head and said, "I mean, Liz. And watch yourself, too."

As it turned out, Lizzie made it to Nicky's apartment before Ressler by a couple of minutes. Theo, coming out of the bedroom to greet her with a ringing meow and demand food, started her badly, but she was happy to have something to occupy her hands and thoughts while she waited for Ressler's arrival.

Christ, Rainfield. That poor fuck.

When the doorbell rang it made her jump, even though she was expecting it.

"It's me," Ressler said through the intercom. "I'm still downstairs."

She buzzed him in and opened her front door at his short knock. He entered, throwing the duffel bag with his clothes down in the hallway. "Coffee?" Lizzie asked. He shook his head. She browsed the pantry. A dusty bottle was tucked away in a corner. "Famous Grouse?" She picked two glasses before he had said anything. Hell, if he wouldn't drink it, she'd have a double.

He accepted his glass with a nod of thanks, though, took a seat in the same chair he'd more or less collapsed in earlier that morning, and lifted his drink in a kind of toast before taking a large swallow.

Lizzie sat down on the sofa, took off her shoes and drew up her legs beneath her. She rubbed her head, pulled the elastic band out of her hair and combed through it. _God. What a day._

"So," Ressler asked, more or less echoing her thoughts, "how do _you_ usually deal with a day like this one?"

She huffed quietly. "A year ago I'd…I'd just go home. To Tom. Being with him, being home…it'd make it ok, you know?" He nodded, as if he understood, and maybe he did. "And after Tom…now I'm living on my own, and it is a day—if this kind of shit happens during the day, I mean—I go to the gym and kick and hit things until I feel better. You?"

"The same. I hit things. Not people; I tried boxing after you…after the Stewmaker. I think I broke someone's nose; I was so mad." He took another drink. "They refuse to let me into the ring when I'm spoiling for a fight, now."

Lizzie smiled faintly. It was at that time that she'd started to distrust Tom. "Yeah." She'd spent quite a few sessions in the gym to work through the rage and terror the Stewmaker had instilled in her. "Unfortunately, I don't think we have a gym available here. Not at…god, it's two o' clock already."

"Hm." He quaffed the rest of his drink and turned the glass restlessly round and round in his fingers.

"What do you do when you can't go and kick things?"

"I was thinking about bending you over the kitchen table," Ressler said.

Lizzie blinked. "Oh." But he didn't move and she took a sip from her glass. "You have a thing for kitchen tables, don't you?" He shrugged. She put the glass down. "So what are you waiting for, my permission?"

"No." Abruptly he got to his feet, lifted his glass in a silent question and, at her nod, refilled it in the kitchen. "I figured I got your permission up front." He showed his teeth in a smile that held little humour. "It's just…Skinny. He's a criminal. He's a pimp and a drug dealer and he abused, prostituted and, as far as we've hypothesized, killed innocent women. _Girls_. He kidnapped a little boy and held a gun to his head, fully intending to pull the trigger to save his own life. He's a murderous bastard, and I'm not sorry I shot him. Hell, if I'd have had to arrest him, and he'd threatened a child, I'd have shot him through the head and thought nothing of it. But what Blofeld did to him… I should have killed him. No one deserves that."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it? I was the one to bring him down. I could've shot him in the heart, or in the head, instead of in the arm. Goddamn it, I'm supposed to be one of the good guys!"

"You stopped him from killing a child."

"I got him _tortured_!" He slammed down his glass so hard on the kitchen counter it rang out like a bell. "Jesus Christ, what are we _doing_ here? I'm hanging out with men I'd shoot on sight as an agent, and I play _poker_ with them! And it's _good_! When I'm with them it feels _natural_, like it was with my old team. I can't think about who and what they are while I'm with them, because if I do, I'll freeze up and blow my cover, and if I do, they'll kill me. But how am I supposed to betray people I spend this much time with, trying to be like them—I _was_ one of them them, during the raid. I shot people, and some may have even deserved it, but I didn't stop them, I went along with it, and I _hate_ it!"

Lizzie chose her words carefully. "It has to be done. And it has to be you."

"I know that." He pressed both his palms down onto the counter, pushing away and dropping back like he was doing some sort of reversed partial push-ups. "That doesn't make it any better. I saved Boscoe's kid from having his brains splattered all over his dad, but I'll turn that dad in the moment I open the container doors. And there is a chance that same dad flayed his son's kidnapper like an animal and left him dangling from the ceiling. And I can't think of that, either, because if I do I'll betray myself. It's all so fucking unnatural."

"It won't take much longer now. It's almost over."

He raked his fingers through his hair, wincing as he met the bruise on the back of his head. "God, I hope so."

"Ressler. It's good you're conflicted." He shot her an annoyed glance, and she amended, "I mean, it's only logical. You're supposed to act convincingly, and I guess the only way you can do that is by really becoming friends with them. I get that that's hard. But think about it. Shuo is gone—Red said he was dangerous..."

He snorted. "No shit."

She continued, "…and I found several homicides that can be traced back to him. You stopped him. And see it however you want to see it, but Skinny won't hurt anyone ever again, either. That's two murderers in three days."

"Minor criminals."

"I'm not so sure Shuo was just a minor criminal," Lizzie said doubtfully. "He just kept under the radar. And, oh, he tried to _kill_ you, which happens to be a federal offence."

Ressler grunted. "He didn't know I am an agent. As far as he knew he was just committing homicide."

Lizzie laughed, long and loud; she couldn't help herself. After a few bewildered seconds, Ressler rewound his own words and chuckled as well, shaking his head. He smiled lopsidedly. "Christ."

Lizzie got up and, with a mental shrug, positioned herself right in front of him. She wished he was wearing a tie so she could pull at it, but he wasn't, so she simply reached up and took hold of his ears to pull his face down to her own. That action so surprised him that he let her, but not so much that he didn't kiss her back.

"What," he murmured, after a minute or so, "was that with the ears?"

"I think you're unbearably cute when you're guilt-tripping."

"I'm not cute and I wasn't g—and what does that have to do with you pulling my ears?"

"I was steering you away from your current topic, which was going nowhere."

He started to protest, but she scuttled up until she was standing between his legs, leaned against him and kissed him again. He didn't take very long to convince talking was overrated. His arms closed around her, pulling her closer to his chest so her weight rested almost entirely on him. But there was no passion in it, despite Ressler's promise to bend her over the kitchen table. He was probably just as tired as she was. Even if he had slept all day. Ok, maybe he wasn't tired. It was nice, nevertheless: comforting, and it was a long time ago since she'd lip-locked with a man in this kind of sweet, unhurried, half-asleep way.

Maybe more than half-asleep.

"Liz." There was a smile in his voice; she couldn't see if was on his mouth as well because her eyes were closed. "Keen. Nicky. Hey. Time for bed."

Who needed a bed when a man leaning against a kitchen counter was so comfortable?

"I could stay like this all night," she murmured, and he laughed quietly.

"I couldn't. Come on. You can cuddle up to me in bed, if you want."

She opened one eye. "Did you just use the word 'cuddle'? Donald Ressler _cuddles_?"

"No, he don't," Ressler said. "Aaron might."

She was both amused and, again, comforted by how he automatically assumed they would share the bed and wasn't talking about sleeping on the couch. "I don't want to cuddle with Aaron."

"Go and do your thing, Liz."

Her 'thing' was a quick shower, make-up removal and teeth brushing. She was glad to get out of the bathroom and back into company. When she was alone, the image of Skinny's broken body tended to invade her mind, and no matter how many awful things he'd done, he'd also been nothing more than a young man with a pretty face who'd been horribly maimed.

When she came out of the bathroom, Ressler had closed the curtains, turned off all the lights apart from the bed lamp, stripped down to his boxers and stood looking at the bed, toothbrush in hand. "You have rainbow-shitting sandwich cats on your cover," he stated.

"That's nyan cat."

"Let me guess. It's Japanese."

"Might be."

"Must be."

"It doesn't have any tentacles."

He shot her a somewhat startled glance, then shrugged to himself and disappeared into the bathroom.

He still smelled faintly of cigarette smoke when he came out and Lizzie dutifully snuggled up to him; she guessed he'd take the Lion's Den with him wherever he went until he turned his back on that place for good. Ressler squirmed a little when she draped herself over his chest, but didn't push her away, which made her smile.

"How's your head?"

"Hurts a little. It's fine."

She brought up her fingers and carefully traced the welt on his neck to the band aid he still wore on his throat. "How about this?"

"As long as you don't touch it, I hardly feel it," he said, taking her hand and putting it back down on his chest.

Lizzie had a sudden strange and powerful desire to _make_ him feel, to rip off the bandage and press her tongue into the slit in his throat and suck at it until it started bleeding again. She had actually already slid a nail beneath the edge of the band aid before she caught herself, shook her head and pulled away from him a little.

_Jeez. Where did that come from?_

"What is it?" Ressler asked.

"Nothing. This day. I'm tired. Are you tired? You slept all day."

"I could sleep."

He didn't sound sleepy, and for a second she wondered if he had joined her here in bed because he was sorry for snapping at her earlier, or because he thought she needed the moral and physical support. If that was the reason he was here, it would be a very sweet one, even if it was somewhat sexist. Lizzie could take care of herself. Nevertheless, she wasn't sorry he was here. It did make her feel safer.

She frowned at herself. _You can floor a two hundred pound man with two punches and a swipe of your leg. You can shoot moderately well and hit bull's eye eight times out of ten from fifty yards away. You survived Berlin. And yet you need to be held by a man to feel safe? Woman, you're pathetic._

_Unless it's Ressler who secretly needs to be comforted, and that's why he wants to sleep with me._ That last explanation suited her much better. Secure in her toughness, she stroked one suggestive hand over his chest, but before it could lead to anything she had already fallen asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: This chapter contains sex. Just so you're warned

Thanks for the reviews, by the way! Please keep 'em coming. Like the story? Please tell me! Hated it? Tell me why.

After lying awake for another twenty minutes, Ressler slowly extracted himself from Lizzie's embrace, careful not to wake her up. He watched her from the edge of the bed for a moment, but no, she was fast asleep, no sign of nightmares. Good.

Shrugging into his t-shirt, he made his way to the living room and booted up her laptop. It took him a few tries to remember and correctly type in the password, but finally he made it to the Quantico server. He logged in, retracted the APB on James Rainfield and started typing his report. Nothing settled him like finding boring phrases to describe horrible discoveries.

_**Agent Keen and I discovered the subject in the empty barrels storage room on Junction Str. Skinny was strung up like a piece of venison—**_

No, that wasn't right.

_**Rainfield was hanging from the ceiling and partially flayed.**_

Yes, that was better.

_**We secured the room and Agent Keen called 911. Rainfield was still alive despite his injuries and doped up to the eyeballs—**_

No, damn it. He started as the cat, Theo, jumped onto the table and ponderously pawed the screen where the blinking cursor awaited more text input.

"Stop that," he told the cat, picked it up and put it down onto the ground. He scratched at the tape on his ribs, making a mental note to pull it off before going back to bed. The adhesive was making him itch.

_**Rainfield was still alive despite his injuries and under heavy sedation. I attempted to speak to him, but he was unresponsive. **__After that, I tried to joke with Agent Keen to stop her from contaminating the crime scene by hurling all over the place, but because I'm an abject failure at being funny, I just kept standing there feeling stupid and sick and she went outside to throw up in the nearest garbage can instead._

Ressler tiredly rubbed his forehead and blinked his eyes at the screen. He hadn't actually typed that last bit. Good. You never knew when the server auto-saved things. He sighed as the cat jumped onto his lap and started kneading his thighs.

"If you touch me in an inappropriate place or start humping me I _will_ throw you out of the window," he told it. It calmly went on pawing for a while, then curled up and went to sleep with its hind legs stretched out and digging uncomfortably into his stomach. He tried to shift it into a better position, but it wouldn't budge, and with another sigh he let it lie. The rest of his report was brief, as they had left before forensics came in to brush for fingerprints and it was unclear whether Skinny would wake up anytime soon. He sent it, shut down the laptop, deposited the cat on his chair and went to the bathroom, where he removed first the medical tape from his side and then, hissing a little as it stuck to still-raw flesh, the band aid from his throat. A three inch cut about two millimetres deep neatly divided the curve of his larynx in two; it was a dry, clean cut, but he didn't think it would be wise to leave it uncovered if he went out in the morning. It gaped a little when he moved his head. _Good thing I got my fingers in between that string and my neck,_ he thought, absentmindedly bending those fingers and appreciating the pain that movement caused. The cuts in his fingers were a lot deeper than the one in his neck. Had Shuo been able to saw that deeply into his throat, Ressler didn't think he'd be able to speak now. Or breathe.

Making his way back to the living room, he retrieved his glass of whiskey from the kitchen counter, where he'd left it about an hour ago. It still held a fingerbreadth of liquor and he drank it slowly —wincing at the first swallow: mint and whiskey didn't mix well—while pacing through Nicky's apartment.

God, he hated this. Not being in control, having to wait until men less competent than him traced down leads, and not being able to tell his people to move in and take the bastards down on his 'go'. He hated not having a constant data feed in his ear. He missed being home, in his carefully ordered house. Most of all, he thought, as he scratched his fingers through the growth on his jaws, he missed being himself. Feeling like himself. Hell, it was only four days and it felt like he'd been Aaron Stone all his life. He didn't like Stone very much. _Isn't that great? I'm so good at impersonating someone else that I start loathing myself._

He sneered at himself for being a mopey emo, finished his whiskey and went back to the bedroom. He was still feeling restless, but he hadn't been lying when he told Lizzie he could sleep; he just didn't want to.

Lizzie lay on her side, fast asleep, her eyes fluttering behind her closed eyelids. One of her arms still lay stretched out on the place he'd vacated, and he regarded her quietly for a few seconds. It felt weird to get into bed with her without the intention to have sex with her. And that, in itself, he guessed was somewhat strange as well.

_Deal with it._

When he sat down on the bed and slid his legs below the cover, Lizzie twisted and lashed out at him, fingers stretched out stiffly as she aimed for his throat.

"Ack!"

Her aim was off—she was still asleep, really—and she only tapped him, but her next move would probably be to go for his eyes, and if she got her legs untangled from the covers she might actually hurt him before he could shake her out of her reaction.

"Liz! Stop it!" He grabbed her right arm and only barely caught the punch of her left in his other hand as it struck towards his face. "Lizzie!" He yanked up her arms, pushed them down into her pillow.

"Let go!" she screamed, fighting one leg free from the duvet and using it to push away from him, her body coiling like a serpent's. "Let me go! Get away from me!"

Ressler eyed her foot with apprehension. "Liz, it's me! Stop fighting me. Wake up. Look, I'm letting you go, see? It's me. Calm down. Calm down."

Releasing her wrists, he held up his own hands, both to show her he was unarmed and had no intention of hurting her and to defend himself if she didn't wake up and continued her attack…but she stared up at him, panting, and then slowly sat up straight and dropped her balled fists onto her thighs.

"Ressler?"

He touched his neck. One of her nails had hit the welt on his throat and scratched it open. A thin stripe of blood showed on his finger. Seeing it made him feel strangely vulnerable, and just a little bit aroused. _Maybe I should start wearing a fencing mask around Liz. _"Uh, yeah," he replied wryly.

"Oh god, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"For someone who's supposed to be my girlfriend you take an unholy pleasure in kicking me in the nose and punching me in the throat."

"I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"No."

Her breath rushed out as she exhaled; shakily, she rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry. I was…I must've been dreaming. I thought you were…someone else."

"It's ok. You're got some pretty good reflexes."

"Yeah…" She raised her hand and gently tipped up his chin. "You're bleeding."

"It's nothing. You just…" He fell silent and stiffened as she sat up on her knees and touched her tongue to the bead of blood. "Uhh…"

_Ok, that's not healthy. Push her away. Stop this._ But the sting of her licking that tiny cut on a half-healed scar somehow turned him from half hard to achingly so in roughly three seconds, and as his head dropped back to bare more throat to her, he realised he didn't want her to stop.

"Do you like that?" Lizzie asked softly, pausing to draw her fingers down his stomach. "Pain?"

"No," he said hoarsely, and he didn't, he didn't understand S&M or any of that weird shit—maybe it had to do with the fact that she was nuzzling his neck and he was sensitive about that.

"Are you sure?" she murmured.

"Yes," he grated out, then gasped aloud as her mouth fastened on his neck, suckling at that scratch, and swallowed as she simultaneously pressed her hand down, trapping his erection against his belly. "S-stop it." Wasn't it funny how he was so much stronger than her and she had him immobilized with the tip of her tongue? He swallowed as she circled him with her fingers though the fabric of his boxers.

"I don't mind," she whispered, flicking her tongue over the cuts and bruises on his throat. She carefully avoided the front of his neck, though, where the cut was deepest. "I really don't mind if you like pain, just a little. It's ok."

"I _don't_," he protested, and what a feeble protest that was in the state he was in. He didn't want to lose it completely, not while she was literally sucking his blood and he might give her the idea that he got off on pain. Which he didn't. "Stop it." He took her wrists, gathered them in one hand and pressed them into the pillows again, more or less forcing Lizzie to either lie down on her back or pull free. She did that, at first, snatching one hand out of his grip with a panicked jerk; but when she noticed he released her immediately, she allowed him to grab her wrist again and let him push her down with her hands clasped above her head.

"I don't like to mix sex with pain," Ressler told her. His neck was tingling. And maybe he was full of shit because he was so hard it hurt, and he kind of liked it that way. He used his free hand to hike up the tank top she slept in, exposing her chest.

"Ok," Lizzie breathed. Her breasts were white, modest domes in the dim, a perfect drop-shape, the nipples darker and drawn tight, hardening even more when he traced one of them with his fingertips. "If you say so."

"Mm."

She arched her back when he suckled one nipple into his mouth and fondled the other one between his fingers, squirmed as he drew his tongue down her breastbone. He decided he loved the small sounds she made when he caressed her, stroked her ribs in order to elicit more of them and leaned forward to swallow them before they escaped her lips. Her belly quivered when he ran his thumb from her navel down to the crease of her thigh and he lingered there, enjoying the way she felt both soft and giving and firm as her abdominal muscles tensed. When he fingered the waist of her pyjama bottoms she lifted her hips so he could pull them down, and after teasing her for a bit, he did just that.

Well hello, he wasn't the only one who showed inappropriate reactions to, well, her reaction, was he now? What did it say about her if inflicting pain on him, no matter how minor, turned her on so much?

_Probably that the both of us urgently need a stable relationship. With someone normal_, he thought dryly.

For the moment, however, Lizzie had to make do with him, and judging by how slick she was, she was pretty much ok with that, for the time being. When he pushed into her, slowly if only to show that he could show restraint, she moaned and again tried to pull her arms free, but this time he tightened his hold on her wrists and kept them there, making sure he didn't hurt her. It meant he had to support himself with only one arm or lean his entire weight on her and crush her into the bed, but he soon ceased to regard that as a problem when she brought up her legs and wrapped them around his waist.

Like him, Lizzie went running regularly to keep in shape; her legs were strong and more than capable of holding her in place, not matter what he did—which was, after he'd shown such admirable restraint, slamming into her as fast as he could. Her heels dug into the muscles of his lower back, pressing into him whenever she tensed her thighs to meet his thrusts. She made some kind of breathy growling noise when he slipped his free hand into the small of her back, pulling her closer so he could angle in deeper, but he wouldn't release her arms and his eyes widened in surprise as her teeth closed down hard on his lower lip.

"Wet go," she said, without releasing his lip. "Or I'll wite."

"Yeah?" he panted. But he didn't actually want her to draw blood, so he released her wrists and the next moment she had flipped him over and reversed their positions.

"Now," she drawled, "where were we?"

Ressler tested her grip. She needed both hands to keep his locked above his head, and he felt confident he could break that grip with relatively little effort, but for the moment he was fine with her holding him immobilized, and relaxed. "Apparently somewhere with you on top."

"Damn right. And you still have your shirt on."

"So do you." Silly of him. He should have taken it off instead of simply pulling it up. "Damn. And here we both are with our hands occupied."

"I'm sure I have a set of cuffs somewhere."

"I will _not_ let you cuff me to the bed," Ressler said with a tug at his wrists.

She tightened her hold on him, kept him down. "In that case you'll just have to cooperate willingly."

"Cooperate?"

"Yes." She let go with one hand, leaning hard on his arms to make sure he didn't pull free—which he didn't, as he was rather curious what she had in mind—and scrunched up his shirt all the way until it got stuck around his shoulders.

"Cooperate with what?"

"First, with me bringing myself off on you. Tsk, holding a woman down like that."

"Uh," Ressler said, and meaningfully wriggled his fingers.

"That's different."

"Not really," he protested, but there were worse things than having Liz Keen ride him like a horse, so he didn't try to escape very hard. Just lying there while she proceeded to walk the talk was somewhat frustrating, though, as she moved with short little jerks that apparently felt really good to her but did very little for him, and every time he thrust up to get more friction, she stopped altogether and made an annoying little 'Uh-uh!' sound.

Still, it wasn't unpleasant or anything. He didn't mind watching her use him like some sort of living dildo, even if he were painfully close to the edge and it would take only a couple of long, hard strokes to get him off. She wouldn't do that, though, and when her fingers brushed his groin and her body clenched down on him and she gasped, biting her lip to keep from crying out, he couldn't help bucking up to try and get there too.

"Oh no," Lizzie said, still breathing fast as she detached herself from him, "no, no, no. Not yet, not you. First we're going to explore that fascinating little idiosyncrasy of yours." She squeezed his wrists, and he was still too curious to shake her off.

"What are you talking ab—"

"Ah, you took it off." The next moment he knew what she was talking about, when her tongue licked a wet stripe along the scrape on his ribs.

Ressler froze. It didn't precisely hurt, it was more like a very gentle burn or stinging tickle.

"Hmmm," Lizzie murmured, and licked him again, gauging his reaction.

He didn't know what his reaction was, but he shivered a bit when she sucked on that scratch and made it sting a little more. But when she wrapped her fingers around his cock and squeezed it while she tongued the cut on his side, his entire body just seized and he threw back his head with a wholly surprised, wholly involuntarily, "_Oh_."

"Ah," Lizzie said, sounding pleased. She hesitated, but only for a second and then returned to his neck, skirting her tongue over the edges of that cut, and he didn't know how that worked, but that tingle of pain reverberated all the way down his spine and made him gasp with pleasure. The pleasure became even more focused when she gently rubbed her fingers along his straining erection.

And then she placed her mouth on his Adam's apple and he didn't even know how he produced the ragged sound he made before gasping out, "Harder. Bite harder."

"You want me to bite you?"

"Yes."

She did, and he gave another sob of pleasure.

"You like that?" Lizzie whispered, before pressing her teeth into his throat again.

"Yes," he choked out, no longer caring what that might make her think of him, only wishing she'd continue. "Harder."

"Like this?"

"_Yesss_."

She didn't bite down harder, just sucked, but her hand tightened into a fist around his cock, and when she started jerking him off like that he lasted about thirty seconds longer before he uttered a muted sound of pain and ecstasy, exploded into climax and collapsed in a heap, panting.

Lizzie made a supremely satisfied sound.

Ressler stared at the ceiling, feeling stunned, and tried to get his breathing back under control.

_What. The fuck._ His body was still thrumming with pleasure, even though his neck ached and the feeling was not at all pleasant.

Lizzie left the bed, returning a few seconds later with a towel, which she used to clean him up. She was humming while she was doing it, and that made him a little bit worried. _Good god, this woman makes me weird._ He winced as she dabbed the towel at his throat.

"Oh good. I didn't make you start bleeding again."

He opened his eyes when she lay down next to him and put her head on his shoulder.

"So," Lizzie murmured smugly, "You get turned on by dirty talk and pain."

Ressler groaned. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, but he was afraid she'd simply laugh in his face. She'd probably already added this whole mess to her mental profile of him. "If you ever approach me with a candle or a whip or a set of ropes or anything, anything like that, I will _boot_ you in the fucking head." He shivered at the thought of a switch, and that had nothing to do with sexual arousal. If there was anything that made him uncomfortable it was the idea, the mere _idea_, of being hurt on purpose and liking it.

"Promises, promises."

"I'm serious, don't…"

"You're always serious. And I told you I don't mind." She smirked. "That explains why you were still more than good to go when I accidentally kicked you in the nose that one time."

"No," Ressler said firmly. That had actually been really painful, nothing pleasant about it. "That was because I was drunk and you'd been projecting…" He closed his mouth.

"Projecting what?"

"Nothing." The last thing he wanted her to think was that unhappy women turned him on, too. They didn't. Maybe it was just Keen who was desirable when she was miserable, and doubly so when he was feeling down as well. That must be it: this was all her fault. Audrey would never have…

_Audrey is dead. You got her killed and you will never make love to her again._

"Shut up," he muttered at the voice inside his head. Maybe it was Stone. Maybe Stone liked pain, not him. That would be convenient.

"Don't tell me to shut up."

"I wasn't talking to you. And you shut up, too."

Lizzie snorted. "Ressler? Maybe you should try out that councillor. She's really nice."

"No." He rolled over and fixed her with a stern stare. "This never happened. You didn't attack me, and you most certainly didn't latch onto my throat like a leech on a cow in a stream. We did not fuck each other senseless within three hours after discovering that poor bastard's flayed body and shipping it off to the hospital." _Because we're normal, sane people, and sane people don't do these kinds of things._

She regarded him with the corners of her mouth pulled down, unimpressed. "You forgot to add that you didn't get high on coke, _again_, and weren't a dick to me for most of the evening. Oh, and that you didn't spend most of the day in a stupor because someone tried to kill you, almost strangled you and hit you a concussion."

"That's not…"

"I'm getting sick and tired of 'forgetting' about all the times we have sex and it's…awkward. It won't stop being awkward, not unless we start…I don't know, start dating, or something."

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen." It might be interesting to see how Reddington would react to him dating Lizzie, though.

"We've been doing little else for the past four days," Lizzie said quietly. "acting undercover." She gave a soft snort. He echoed it. She'd probably had more successful dates with her dog. "Don, I think you're a great guy," _WUT? _"But you're also an unbearably dour, condescending asshole with limited social skills and anger management issues."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"Well, glad you got that off your chest."

He could feel another 'but' coming and dreaded it. In his opinion a woman wouldn't indulge a man in unhealthy fetish-sex and then tell him she thought he was horrible while staying snuggled up next to him.

She was silent, and he lay there in fear of what she might say next. And yes, there she went, almost regretfully: "I think I…"

"No."

"But I think…"

"Shut. Your mouth." He turned to face her, "We work together. You don't like me much, usually. And sometimes you do, when you're scared, or miserable, or lonely. I get that. That's fine. And I'm fine with awkward post-sex situations. We both have needs, right, and as long as we both want to, why not? But we can't have…we can't take this…It can't become anything else. You understand that, don't you? It wouldn't _work_. You'd drive me crazy within a day." She blinked, and he closed his eyes and said, "Tell me you weren't about to say 'I think I need to go to the bathroom.'"

Lizzie laughed. It was a trifle sad but genuine. She stroked a reassuring palm down his side. "No. Whatever I was going to say…I think you summed it up pretty well."

"Oh." He sighed with relief. "Good."

"I do think you give head really, really well."

"Go to sleep, Liz."

"I mean really, _really_ well."

"Go to sleep."

"I could slap you around a little to get you in the mood."

Ressler heaved a deep, deep sigh. "You are never going to let me live this down, are you?"

"Never."

"In that case I might just as well go to sleep. Since I have a concussion and am probably still reeling from my cocaine abuse."

Lizzie smiled; he could hear it in her voice. "You weakling."

"Shut up and go to sleep, Keen." She sighed, and on an impulse he leaned over and kissed her again, soft and deep, and almost apologetically. "Go to sleep."

"Ok," she said. She briefly squeezed his shoulder, then turned around and curled up on her side.

_Ok, _Ressler thought, as well. He slowly blew out the breath he'd been holding and closed his eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

Ressler was a morning spooner.

He wasn't much for going to sleep plastered all over someone, as Lizzie had noticed the few times she'd stayed over to sleep, actually _sleep_ with him, but in the early morning, that hard-boiled part of him apparently got soft—or rather, some soft part of him became hard, and his body automatically scanned whether someone was available within arm's reach, and after detection zoned in on that other person to slide up to and kind of rub up against just before he woke up.

At least, that was the way she thought it worked. He'd done it before: spoon up to her in the morning; only the previous times he had jolted awake and got out of bed almost immediately after touching front to back.

She was quite sure he wasn't awake yet when she slowly drifted out of sleep herself and became aware of a warm body pressing up against her.

_Dear god, Don. For someone who doesn't want to have a relationship, you seem practically hardwired to really, really need one._ It was nice, though. And he probably couldn't help it. It had been quite a long time since she'd been woken this way, and, unless he got more action than she did, about the same amount of time for him to find someone to dry-hump in his sleep. _Guess men don't need to love me to get wood and bone me in the morning, _she thought, but it wasn't as bitter as it would have been a couple of months ago. At least with Ressler she now knew it was purely physical and based on mutual liking. _I could act on it, wind him up, bite his neck, make him lose himself again and thereby both embarrass him and make him doubt himself._ It was an attractive notion.

The thing was; Lizzie, from a very young age, was renowned for reacting badly to people telling her she should not have or do things because they were bad either for her, for her image, or for her future prospects. She hadn't survived a fire at the age of four to be content with being coddled for the rest of her life.

So she'd worn miniskirts without panties. Only once, but she'd done it.

She'd had her navel pierced (it had not been a success, and it had gotten infected so she'd had to take it out).

She'd almost gotten a tattoo out of pure rebelliousness, before she realized that she didn't actually want a tattoo, but was sick and tired of being told that she _shouldn't_ get one.

She'd run with a boy she really shouldn't have, because her dad had said he was a bad choice, and he had been. On the other hand, he'd shown her how to do card tricks and pick locks and pockets, so that had not been a total waste of time.

She'd even decided she wanted to become a profiler because her teachers thought she wouldn't be any good at it, and should pursue a career in teaching, journalism or, perhaps, psychology. She'd kept the psychology, but still: FBI. Flying colours.

Part of her total initial refusal to mistrust Tom was because Red had told her she should, while no one had told her not to trust Red. That was considered to be so natural that no one had really bothered, and that was how he had been able to get so close to her so quickly.

And now here was Ressler telling her that they shouldn't take whatever kind of relationship it was they were having to the next level, whatever what that might be, because of who and what they were.

He was totally right, of course.

Most of the time, she didn't even like him. That hadn't changed in the past couple of months. Right now was one of those times. Not to mention that relationships at work were severely frowned upon, and probably forbidden at the Post Office. The thought of having Ressler around 24/7 was pretty daunting, really. Eight to ten hours a day workweek after workweek was hard enough, and she could tell by the way he folded his towels that he had plenty of neurotic tics she had never even been exposed to yet. Imagine the horror of living with that overly ordered personality, trying to fit in. She'd drive him crazy alright. And he her. There actually wasn't a single positive thing she could think of when picturing having a relationship with the man. Apart from the sex, perhaps. She could see the pros of more sex.

But damn it! He'd rather die than give up the code to the box to save Reddington but he didn't even want to try if it could work out with her? He'd rather tell her she'd drive him insane and keep her at a safe distance than wonder if she might like to move out of her monthly safe houses and invite her over to see if that was actually the case?

And he did that _after_ she almost bashed his face in and discovered something about him he had pushed down so far he didn't even know it was part of him, and _after_ she had almost told him that she thought she might, just maybe, want more than just the occasional romp, despite the fact that she thought he was a dick—thank _god_ he had stopped her before she had—and _prior_ to …to this! To _spooning_!

Telling Lizzie she shouldn't have something because it would not work out, never failed to make her want it, even if she hadn't even considered it to be desirable before. And so she was determined to prove Ressler wrong. She had no illusions of love—Donald Ressler obviously did not feel that way about her. But that didn't mean that he'd feel that way forever. Or even that he was honest to himself about the way he felt.

He obviously liked her. Trusted her. Last night was pretty much the epitome of trust; she doubted he had ever done that with anyone before. Not even with his _precious _Audrey, not when he'd been so adamant he was …

She opened her eyes.

_Audrey_.

All of a sudden, her cheeks burned with shame.

She was feeling spiteful toward a dead woman she'd never even met, and the sole reason for her derision was that she'd made Ressler _happy_. Ressler hadn't ever even initiated conversation with Liz until Audrey had shown up at his bed in the hospital—where she, Liz, had never visited because she didn't think he'd appreciate it and because she was busy—but afterwards, when he'd returned with a cane and a limp, when he spoke to her and it was unrelated to a case, it was about Audrey. Audrey seeing another man. Audrey wanting to go for coffee. Going on a date with Audrey. He'd been obsessed with freaking _Audrey_. Had he ever spoken about any other woman, before or after? Other girlfriends? Anything personal at all, outside of work?

_No. Because he didn't __**have**__ anything he cared that much about. All he cared about was Audrey. And she died because she was involved with him. When he went after Tanida I was so __**baffled**__, I thought he'd gone crazy, but in retrospect I should have known he would be willing to give up everything for her. To avenge her. It's so easy to forget how badly her death fucked him up because he never talks about her. I loved Tom. I adored him. But he turned out to be a monster and I had time to readjust to that and mourn the death of my husband before I shot him. Audrey was innocent. She died the perfect victim. Hell, she was even carrying his child! _

And if Audrey hadn't died, Liz wouldn't even have this, whatever it was. She wouldn't have joined Ressler in that pub and gotten spectacularly drunk with him—because he would've gone home to Audrey. She might still have come knocking at his door after she'd confronted Red, but she would not have slept with him then, because Audrey would have been there. If not for Audrey dying, Lizzie would be completely alone still.

_Thank you, Audrey. For dying. For making him miserable enough to want me._

_Christ, I'm pathetic._

Lizzie might have worked herself up into a complete nervous state of doubt and self-loathing if Aaron Stone's phone hadn't gone off in the pocket of Ressler's jeans. He was awake, had pulled away from her and was out of bed before the second tone sounded, and answered it with his own name. Lizzie sat up and put on her pyjama pants while he was on the phone, but looked up sharply as he snarled, "_What_?"

_Uh-oh._ She waited impatiently until he ended the conversation. "Who was that?"

"Hospital," Ressler said curtly. He began to dress with angry, jerky movements.

"Skinny?"

"Yes. He won't be talking anytime soon."

"He hasn't woken up yet?"

"No." He clawed out of the T-shirt he'd slept in and threw it onto the bed with barely suppressed rage, "They're keeping in a chemically induced coma. They're afraid he'll die the moment he comes out of it. But even if he were awake, he wouldn't be able to communicate." His lip twisted. "His tongue was cut out. And the tendons of his wrists were severed. He can't speak, and he can't write, and even if he survives, it'll be some time until we can try anything else to get him to talk."

Lizzie cursed. Ressler walked to the hallway, retrieved his bag and got out a fresh shirt. Rather belatedly, she realised that he was well on his way to leaving, and scrambled out of bed herself. "Wait. Where are you going?"

"Shipping yard. I need to know when that boats comes in."

"I'm coming with you."

"You don't need to."

"Yes," Lizzie said, shrugging into the first article of clothing she came upon, which happened to be something typically Nicky. "I do. Remember those rules you never stopped nagging me about? Never give up your weapon? Never go into a potentially hostile situation without backup? You're not going anywhere without me."

He faced her with what would be called exasperation on a face more expressive than his own. "Aaron Stone has no reason whatsoever to take his girlfriend to the harbour."

"Aaron Stone can kiss my ass." She went into the bathroom and applied deodorant. "Make yourself breakfast; it's faster than take away. And coffee. If we're going to be up and running about, we might as well do it without a caffeine deficiency."

He hesitated, then nodded brusquely and disappeared into the living room. And just like that, any thoughts about relationships were thrust into the background, unimportant.

_Thank god for this case_, Lizzie thought.

Twenty minutes later, they were on their way to the harbour. Ressler had no idea what exactly he wanted to do, but he was not going to sit on his ass in Nicky's apartment and twiddle his thumbs while Claus and Solomon might still have the chance to beat him to the shipment.

He hit the gas, and the Harley roared like an animal. Keen clutched at his sides when they rounded a corner; they were going way too fast, and a couple of times his knee almost touched the pavement. The speed fitted his mood, though, so he kept it up as long as possible in the dwindling Sunday morning traffic. At least his machine could go fast; despite the coffee, his own brain had slowed down to a crawl again and throbbed dully inside his skull, as if he were having a hangover. Stubbornly, he tried to prod it into activity.

_If I were a civ, a criminal civ, how would I go about to get the information I require? The easiest way would be to simply walk up to the harbourmaster, tell him what I want and get it from him. I don't have my badge on me, but Keen does, and no one needs to know we got the information that way._

_But what if he's in on it? What if he's working for Blofeld as well, and this is yet another test? We know the boat and the number of the container, but Boscoe can still fuck things up for me, if I'm ousted as an agent. The same thing happens if we bring in Anasenko for questioning. No, Anasenko must wait until we've got the shipment._

_So then what? Simply ask him without a warrant? Break into his office and see if the ship's ETA is already known? Threaten him with a gun to his head? _

"No," he said aloud. "That's not the way we do this kind of thing at the Bureau."

"What?" Lizzie asked.

"Nothing." He slowed down and steered onto the wharf. Immediately, he was seized by despondency. Ocean liners the size of a city block to the left. Containers the size of a large trailer, some twice that, stacked up to twenty high, formed a spreading, looming, larger than life maze to the right. Offices you could get lost in stood straight ahead. Houston had been about five times as large, but it was still huge. He made a sound of disgust. "I hate ports. And boats."

Lizzie nodded slowly. "Containers too. And drugs." He frowned at her, but she was staring at the towering containers. "At least it isn't a bomb, this time."

Ressler grunted. He coasted the bike to the office building, parked and hopped off, absentmindedly helping Lizzie descend as well. Why on earth was she wearing that dress again? "Got your badge?"

"In my purse."

"Ok. I want to see if we can find the ship without using it, first. If he proves reluctant…"

"I'll convince him. If needs by telephone to save our cover."

"He might be working for Blofeld," Ressler said, sharing his concern.

Liz sighed. "Yeah. That might be a possibility."

"Let's just see what we can find."

They entered the large, white, dirty building. It smelled like an old school: musty, somewhat mouldy, and of wet coats. It had curling linoleum on the floor and plenty of rooms that had never been occupied. Despite the fact that it was Sunday, at a little before nine in the morning, the office was bustling. That was to say, it was chaos. Some people stood around the water cooler, chatting; others hung around drinking coffee, but quite a lot of people were milling about, running around or wandering to and fro.

No one seemed interested in the two FBI agents, or rather, in the square guy with the bandaged neck and the drawn face and the woman somewhat scantily clad for October. No one blocked their way or asked them where they were going. There was an information desk with a visitor counter, but the man sitting behind it was in such a deep conversation with someone he was almost pushing his arm through the telephone. With a shrug and a shared look, Ressler and Lizzie began to search for the harbourmaster's, Nicholas Hardy's office. It didn't take them very long to find, as it was on the top floor as indicated on the floor plan and oversaw one of the biggest cranes. The office greeted them with a furiously ringing, non-mobile phone, but was otherwise empty. It only contained a large and overflowing desk, a computer, a steel locker, two worn office chairs and a small table with a full ash tray. The computer was on, the screen black.

Lizzie and Ressler shared another look, and another nod.

Ressler moved the mouse and made a half-incredulous, half-pleased sound when an excel sheet popped up without even a hint of a password.

_Then again, what am I going to do with this kind of information? Casually steal a container?_

It took him a while until he could make sense of the sheet and figure out what the numbers, the abbreviations and the colours meant, but after some trial and error he knew where to look for the names of boats coming from Venezuela. The Havanna 5 HV was not among them. He snarled silently.

"No luck?" Lizzie asked. She was standing at the door, keeping an eye out. "Let me try."

"No." He checked again. "Wait. This is for today. Let me see…" The excel list had several tabs. Because Mr. Hardy had his own unique and frankly incomprehensible system, some tabs were dates and some different kinds of ships or lots, and it took Ressler the better part of another five minutes to browse through them. But finally he found what he was looking for: **Havanna 5 HV, port of org Venezuela, Arr. 23 Oct, further info green**.

He repressed the urge to slam his hand down on the mouse and crush it. "Further info green. Further info green. Would it kill you to be _the fuck_ more specific?"

"Let me have a look at it," Lizzie said, gently pushing him aside. "Keep watch on the door."

"Why would you know what 'further info green' means?" Ressler snapped.

"Because a. I'm better with computers than you. And b. my dad had a really complicated system for his expenses and I was pretty good at it. And c…." She shot a brief glance at his face and did not finish her sentence. He knew what she was thinking, though, and clenched his jaws together. _C. You're kinda fraying at the edges and may not be best suited to think quickly and logically. _

The problem was that she was right. He wasn't feeling very well, and that always made him edgy. Grumbling quietly, he took up Lizzie position at the door and rubbed at his throat. Apparently, formerly clean wounds didn't appreciate being tongued and suckled (well, _duh_!). The cut itched and burned beneath the fresh band aid. It was now surrounded by a hickey as well.

_Swell._ "Found anything?" he asked.

Lizzie shook her head, frowning. "I can't find…wait, I think I know where to look." As she minimized the excel sheet, another program popped up. It looked like a map of the port and was divided up into coloured squares. "I think there's another little office in section C. It's green. That makes sense: they keep the records per section." She took a picture of it with her phone.

Ressler did not think this logical, but he was in no mood to think up alternative meanings of the 'further info green'. "Great. Let's roll."

Section C was a good twenty minutes' walk from the main office. Ressler wished he could have taken the Harley, but he doubted they'd have got far. A couple of walking people were easily ignored, a growling motorcycle was a different thing. He supposed they should be glad it was Sunday. Even though business at the port was going on as usual, things were definitely quieter than on a weekday.

The office building in section C was a lot smaller than the main office; a squat, square, two-floor building of the same kind of dirty white concrete. It looked abandoned, the windows unlit, but when Lizzie tried the door, it opened easily. When they entered the building, the hallway lights blinked on, making Ressler curse and narrow his eyes. The room beyond the hallway remained dark. No one was in. The sleep-mode lights of a couple of computers shone orange beneath the desks.

"Maybe they don't start working until ten on Sunday?" Lizzie suggested. She spoke in a whisper, cowed by the unwelcoming, empty building. She had unzipped her taupe jacket, providing instant access to her shoulder holster if that should be necessary.

"Who knows." He pointed to the office downstairs. "You take that one, I'll go up? Let me know if you find something. You've got the container number, right?"

Lizzie nodded, and went into the downstairs office. Ressler took the stairs, where he found another room, much like the one below. Five desks, some filing cabinets, five computers. One of them, on the desk in the back of the room, was already on, but the monitor it was connected to was off. He pressed the button to turn it on, and it showed him a rather bare Windows 7 desktop containing four program or folder logos. One of them was Excel, and he noticed with a small frown that the logo was surrounded by a bright square outline: it was selected already.

_Someone was here before me._

He drew up his knee and snatched the small caliber pistol from his ankle. The .44 was still at Nicky's place.

Keen.

He turned on his heel, but before he had taken two steps he froze as the click of a safety coming off sounded about ten centimeters from his head. A moment later the cold hard pressure of a barrel nudged the bump on the back of his head.

"Drop your gun."  
He recognized the voice, and even though it was downright silly he felt a flash of disappointment.

"Claus?" Well damn it! He'd liked the guy and had been convinced Claus thought Aaron was ok, too. He'd expected an offer of cooperation, not a gun to the head.

Claus' voice was apologetic but firm. "I'm sorry, Aaron. It's nothing personal. Now drop it. Good. No, just keep facing that way. Makes it a little bit easier. It won't help you, but...Damn it, man, you should've just gone when you had the chance."

Ressler's thoughts were racing—or rather, skipping and tumbling while running. "_You_ were the one who set Shuo on me?"

The barrel against his skull dug in deeper when Claus chuckled. "Set him on you? No. So he came for you, huh. And you...what? Killed him? Boscoe wouldn't say anything about it. Maybe he didn't know."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. It doesn't matter. One less in the competition. It's like ten little fucking Indians."

"Yeah, damn right. What the hell is going on! I came here to..."

"Keep facing the wall, Stone."

"Then tell me what's going on!"

"If you don't know, why are you here, Stone? This shipment..." He was interrupted by a clearly audible click. It sounded from the doorway.

"Drop the gun."

Lizzie. Ressler didn't know whether to be annoyed or relieved. If she blew their cover now, there was no way Claus would talk, and if she shot him, well...The pressure against the base of his skull disappeared.

"Turn around, show me your hands. And throw down your gun."

Claus turned, holding one hand up but his pistol, in the other, remained trained on Ressler's head. "You!" he said, and started to laugh. Ressler turned as well, and while he didn't feel inclined to express amusement, he did have to agree it was a strange sight seeing Lizzie in her Come-hither get-up and her marksman's face pointing a gun neatly at Claus' considerable chest. "Damn, Stone, you do know how to pick them, don't you? You're a pretty one, really."

"I said, put the gun down," Lizzie repeated. Her eyes widened briefly, incredulously as Ressler mouthed 'don't blow cover!' at her while Claus' eyes were on her, then she gave a brief nod and said, "If you don't take away that gun from my man's head this instance, I'll shoot your motherfucking face off."

Claus laughed again. "Darling, if you..."

Her gun dipped a few inches, and she cut him off, "I'm sorry, I was mistaken. You don't care about your face. What about your balls? I'm counting to three, and then you'll go through the rest of your life a eunuch. One." Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Two. Th..."

"Ok, ok!" He pointed the gun up, away from Ressler, who immediately grabbed it and took a few steps away from him, trying to locate his own pistol in the dimness of the office.

The big man started to lower his arms, but Lizzie made an "uh-uh!" sound, and he lifted them in the air again. He stared at her with a mixture of admiration and anger. "Now what, darling? You can either shoot me or let me go, but you've gotta make a choice, soon."

Lizzie had realized the same thing. "Aaron? What do you want me to do?"

What Aaron wanted her to do was call the cops so they could take Claus into custody and make him answer a couple of questions asked by A.D. Cooper, but he didn't know how to do that without alerting the big guy to the fact that they were both not who they seemed. Well, he did, but he wouldn't have the opportunity to interview him himself, and he desperately needed answers.

"You were really going to shoot me?" he asked, putting as much hurt into his voice as he was capable of without feeling genuine emotion. "Just because of this fucking Battle Royal Shuo's made of it?"

Claus glanced at him from the corner of his eye. Ressler was still standing behind him, and he tried to keep both an eye on him and on the woman wielding a gun in front of him. "I told you it wasn't personal."

"My life is pretty personal to me. I don't care if you shoot anyone else, but me, that's personal all right."

"Did you kill the chink?"

"He tried to strangle me. Should've used a gun and a pillow." He raised Claus' weapon and pressed it against his temple. "Like I'll do with you, minus the pillow, unless you start answering my questions.

'Nicky, put the gun away, you'll hurt yourself." He caught a glimpse of fury from her, but Lizzie did as she was told, although she kept it, safety off, in her hand. Ressler turned back to Claus. "Now. You're going to tell me what I'm missing. I get that this is a multi-million dollar deal. Fine. But I've never heard of dealers gathering to kill one another over the opportunity to distribute like a couple of knights over a virgin princess."

"That's 'cause this is only the beginning. Look," his body leaned a little towards Ressler, and he shoved the gun harder into his face. Claus subsided. "Look. Let me go, man. You've made your point. I'll pull back. I want this deal, and I want it badly, but I can't get another shot at it while I'm dead, can I?"

"You can't be serious," Lizzie snarled from where she was standing. "Do you really think we'd believe you wouldn't try to kill Aaron the moment you're out of our sight?"

"Aaron?" Claus repeated lazily. "Sweetheart, I wouldn't kill Aaron. Finding out where you live should be easy. All I'd need to do is nab you from your doorstep and rape you so thoroughly children are no longer an option for you. Why would I..."

But the moment those words left his mouth something in Lizzie's eyes just ignited, and as she raised her gun and aimed it between Claus' legs, Ressler knew she would shoot and hit what she was aiming for. He did the first thing that came up in his head, and that was bark at her to stop and simultaneously clobber Claus behind the ear with the butt of his pistol, sending him to the floor, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Lizzie walked up to him and kicked Claus between the legs. Even unconscious, the man groaned and curled up.  
Ressler grabbed her arms, "Jesus Christ, what the hell?"

"Me no children, he no children," she hissed. "Why'd you stop me?"

"I can't let you shoot an unarmed man in the balls!"

"So he can threaten to rape me and that's ok, but you draw the line at me shooting his dick off? He held a gun to your head! He would've shot you if I hadn't arrived when I did. And if he'd gotten away, he would probably make good on his word and try to assault me. Why are you protecting him?"

"I'm not protecting him! I just need him to..." He combed his fingers through his hair and whined with frustration. "He mustn't know who I am, not yet. We need him to talk. God damn it. Keep an eye on him." He marched back to the computer, opened the excel sheet and searched for information on the Havana 5 while Lizzie sat down on a chair and kept her gun on Claus' unconscious form. This sheet was as chaotically set up as Hardy's, but at least it didn't have quite that many shipping lots. "Here it is. Arrival is planned for tomorrow, lot 45, unloading the same day. Containers to be stalled in lot 5 Black." He squinted at the flickering monitor, rubbed at the headache thudding in his temples. "No sign of serial numbers."

"Maybe they're on the physical manifest," Lizzie said. Her voice was still tight with anger.

Ressler sighed. "Possibly." He jerked at another sound, but it was just Claus, groaning. The bastard was already regaining consciousness. Another thought occurred to him. Solomon. If Claus was here, Solomon might be as well. And Aaron should not be connected to the law. "I have to go. You have to take care of this."

Lizzie, all of a sudden seeming to remember what they were doing here, and why they were here in the first place, pulled herself together and nodded. "Yeah. Go. I'll call in."

"Not to...We can't have him thinking we have anything to do with..."

"I've got it, Aaron." Her mouth quirked. "I'll call the police. We'll go through them. He threatened me, after all." She got up from her chair, placed a warm hand on his chest. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. I just need to get out of here."

"Go. And be careful. Watch out for Solomon."

"You too. Make sure this doesn't get out," he added, with a nod at Claus. "Get him to talk. And tie him up if it takes too long; he won't be out for more than a couple of minutes."

Lizzie smiled cruelly. "Perhaps. But it'll be a damn sight longer before he can walk again."

Taking only a moment longer to find his own gun, he wiped his fingerprints from Claus' pistol, folded the other man's hand around it and then kicked it away, far out of his reach. Lizzie was already on the phone. She shot him a fierce little smile that made him grin back, and then he quickly left the building.


	15. Chapter 15

As he set off for his bike at a brisk pace, Ressler felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Busy keeping an eye out for Solomon, the police, or any other people he did not want to meet, he didn't answer it, and only glanced at the screen when he'd safely returned to the Harley.

_**One missed call: Dad**_.

He snorted. _Right. What could Dad possibly want._ He found out not ten seconds later, when the same person sent him a message: _**Dearest Aaron. Haven't heard from you in such a long time. Let's have coffee at Lilian's, near the park. Bring your lovely girlfriend.**_ Ressler read the message three times, but each time it only read as the same flippant, mocking text, without any hidden clues.

He texted back, _**When?**_

_**Is now convenient?**_

He considered how long it would take him to get to the park, then sent back, _**Give me 30 min.**_ As a matter of fact, he had some questions for Dad himself. When he drove off the harbour terrain, a police car with its siren on just entered, and he allowed himself a grim little smile.

_One less. Only Solomon left, now. He didn't save Boscoe's little boy, though._ It was time Aaron showed what he was made of, tonight at the club.

First, however, Reddington.

_No_, he corrected himself as the sun pierced his eyes like a knife and sent a spike of pain through his head, _first we get more painkillers. What a waste using cocaine playing cards, while I could be having it now and get rid of this damn headache._

He drove up to the nearest drugstore and bought a strip of aspirin, taking two and chewing them dry. Then he drove on to the city centre, absently noting that while most of the mess caused by the accident the previous day had been cleaned up, part of the road was still cordoned off.

Lilian's was a tiny café with a disproportionately huge terrace that stretched out well into the park, which meant that it was crowded on sunny days and almost abandoned when it was rainy. It being a beautiful autumn morning, the place was busy with families and old people warming their bones in the sunshine.

Ressler got himself a double espresso and two sticks of sugar, scanned the place for Reddington, didn't see him and found a wobbly table with two chairs at the very edge of the terrace.

God, he was tired. He closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and lifted his face towards it, enjoying the warmth if not the light. He didn't know why he was so exhausted. Too little sleep? Ok, he'd only slept about five hours this night, but he'd been asleep for most of the day before, and the night before that…maybe six hours? More enough to function normally. It wasn't as if he were doing anything strenuous. _Well you know, asshole, maybe it's because your head met the wall and the result of that loving union was a baby lump with split spine syndrome. And maybe you shouldn't be using cocaine on the job, either. Hell, I'm probably suffering from withdrawal. _He sneered at himself. Special Agent Don Ressler, FBI, brought down by cocaine withdrawal. Didn't that sound like the best practical joke of all time? If he weren't feeling like total crap he might have laughed at it, too.

He didn't know if it was instinct or a shift in the light that made him open his eyes, but when he did, Reddington was calmly making his way towards him, while Dembe stood in line in the kiosk-like café to get coffee.

Raymond Reddington had had a busy morning. He was called awake by Abdul al'Khal, who didn't seem to understand that 'I will notify you of any news' meant that if Red did not call him, there was no news. He had once again assured Abdul that he was doing whatever he could to get Shukran back, and that he believed he would know her precise location within two days.

Not three minutes after he had started making preparations for French toast, his second phone went off, but this call was a much more pleasant one. The man on the other side of the line was named Emilio Marcon from Child Services, and he was calling this number because someone had told him he could make a lot of money if he did. Red was happy Emilio had decided he'd like to have the money to put his children through college. A bit of greed was good for the soul, and even better for the educational level of one's offspring. Red promised Emilio that his job, while perhaps not wholly legal, would not harm anyone. On the contrary, all persons involved would be happier and healthier if he did what Red wanted him to do at the moment he could do it. Emilio, whose conscience was already lulled by the five-digit number promised to be transferred to his account, took little effort convincing that he would be doing something good, something helpful. An initial payment of 10,000 dollars, transferred during their conversation, ensured Emilio's dedication. "Well then," Red said, "I'm looking forward to this transaction, Emilio." He gave Emilio a detailed description.

The man repeated it back to him, flawless. "But when," he asked, "will this all happen? When do you want me to make my move?"

"Believe me," Red replied to that with a chuckle. "You will know when the time has come. Soon."

He hung up and stared at the third cell phone that was lying on the table. It was too early to expect it to make a sound, yet after Emilio's welcome call, it wouldn't surprise him.

But the phone remained silent and he could finish his French toast in peace.

Now, what was on his list for today?

The Gauguins needed to be moved; keeping them in Bordeaux would be foolish.

He had to make two calls to make sure that two men could not be discovered by a third faction in Canada.

He really needed to answer Fitch's summons concerning Berlin, but as he had still not discovered where Berlin was holding up at the moment, that could wait.

He should check whether Lizzie and Donald had found out when the ship would arrive, and make sure that they would open the correct container. Once again, he cursed Portega's discovery and subsequent death. If only the man had been a little more careful, Red wouldn't have needed to employ his private little task force at all.

He sighed, picked up his private phone and dialled Ressler's number. Of course the man didn't pick up, so he sent him a text message designed to push his buttons.

Five minutes later he gave Dembe a nod. "To Lilian's."

"Aaron," Reddington said as he weaved his way through the sun-basking elderly. "So sorry to have kept you waiting." He sat down and started slightly when he saw the FBI agent's face. A well-rested Agent Ressler made a more or less convincing grumpy Aaron Stone, charming drug dealer extraordinaire. There was nothing charming about the man sitting across from him. He was, however, incredibly convincing as Aaron Stone—if Aaron Stone suffered from sleep-deprivation and homicidal tendencies. And was that a strangulation scar on his neck? "How are you?" he asked with true curiosity.

"Fine," Ressler said, succinct as usual. "Why'd you want to see me?"

"Where is your lovely girlfriend Nicky?"

Ressler's forbidding mouth relaxed with a hint of a satisfied smirk. "Questioning Claus Sacher. He tried to kill me, threatened Nicky and was arrested. We're hoping he can tell us more about Blofeld's future deals." He took a drink of coffee and repeated, "Why did you want to see me?"

"I have the feeling I am being kept out of the loop, and needed to remedy that. Have you found out when the Havanna 5 will arrive yet?"

"Yes. Tomorrow."

"And the container?"

"I have a serial number. I know where it's going to be off-loaded."

Red nodded. "The serial number is faulty."

Ressler's shadowed eyes fixed him with a burning intensity. "What do you mean?"

"The serial number Boscoe supplied you with is not the correct number." Red said, obnoxiously clearly and slowly.

"And you know this how?"

Red smiled. "I have my resources. Trust me, Aaron, if you go looking for a container with that number, you'll be looking for a long time."

Ressler didn't move. His brow furrowed even deeper. "No," he said slowly. "No, we're not going to play it that way. Not this time."

Red repressed a sigh. He began to sound like Lizzie. "I have been tracking this container ever since it arrived in Venezuela," he confessed.

Ressler blinked. "You…you knew on which ship it was? Then why…"

"No," Red interrupted him, "I knew when it arrived in Venezuela, and I knew when it left. I wasn't personally involved and my contact in that city was…Let's say that he was forced to retire before he could give me all the information I required." Ressler's eyes went slightly glassy, so Red paraphrased: "I didn't know which boat carried that container, and I didn't know when it would embark here. All I know is that the serial number that was given to Boscoe is not the correct one. The container with that number will never arrive here in Baltimore."

"Then…what?" Ressler asked, confused. "I just quit? It's all been for nothing?"

"No. You don't quit, and you proceed according to plan. The shipment will still arrive, and it is imperative that it won't fall into Blofeld's hands. All that's changed is the number on the container."

"And that number is?"

Red got out his phone and pressed a few buttons. A moment later, Aaron's cell chirped in his pocket. "I just sent it to you. Under the cover of another picture of my abundantly flowering gardenia." He placed his hands on the table in front of him, studied Ressler's face and asked, "Tell me, Aaron, when was the last time you slept?"

"A couple of hours ago. Why?"

"And for how long?"

"A couple of hours."

"Hmm. Your neck, was that Shuo's work?" Ressler sat facing him like a basilisk, all stony features and hostile silence. At least Lizzie, when subjected to his manipulations, flared with emotion. Rage, incredulity, sudden understanding—she showed what was going through her head. When he knew what she was thinking, Red was more often than not able to steer her in the right direction—or away from it, depending on what was best for her. Ressler gave him nothing, even less than he usually gave. Red started to laugh, more to goad Ressler into proving he was actually human and not an automaton operated by gerbils than because he thought things were funny. "Come now, Aaron. Lighten up, there's really no need to look so glum. If you need to relax I happen to know a wonderful little spa hidden away in the heart of Baltimore. All the masseurs are men, but they truly know what chakras to hit to make you feel as if you'd just gone through a meat grinder to hell and were reborn in heaven."

Nothing. Not even annoyance. How boring. And how unusual.

"This is all some big game to you, isn't it?" Ressler's voice, when it emerged from his blank face, was almost a surprise. "All this subterfuge, death, pain and torture. What happens to me, or Liz, or any of the people involved…You couldn't care less."

_Ah good, it speaks_. Reddington relaxed and met Ressler's glower with beatific calm.

"Of course I care. But it _is_ a game. A very dangerous, sometimes lethal game, but a game nevertheless. To see it as something more serious would render the players as well as the pieces unable to play their parts. Trust me, I would be _devastated_ if something happened to you. You being my King in this particular game." He reconsidered. "Or maybe I should say my Queen, as she's much more flexible." He nodded his thanks at Dembe as the Sudanese placed a cup of coffee in front of him before sitting down at another table.

"Was Xian Shuo one of your pawns as well?" Ressler asked quietly, and Red had to work hard not to beam at him. _Every time, Donald. Every single time it's such a pleasure playing with you._ He rewarded him with a bite-sized morsel of truth. "I may have let slip to the _zōngpài_ _zhǐ zhēn _that a deal of some magnitude would go down in the Baltimore area, and that anyone interested should forward their contact details to one David Boscoe. I was not certain any of the cult would respond. But to answer your question, I wasn't surprised to find Shuo one of the contenders. I wouldn't have called him my pawn, though. He was more of a Joker, if you could mix cards with chess. And I did not," he said with emphasis, leaning forward a little, "expect him to attack you. Although you ending his life may serve a higher purpose." He shrugged. "I don't think many people will lament his untimely demise."

"What did you do with his body?"

"I sent it back to his family."

"And in return, they will give you…what?"

This time he couldn't keep his smile hidden. Dear god, Donald was almost as good a student as Lizzie. "I don't know yet. They may try to assassinate me. Or decide they owe me a favour. It rather depends on their mood, I suppose. And on whether I decided on the right type of coffin. You never know with the Chinese; it's those small touches no one cares about in the West that can make or break a deal with them."

Ressler grunted. "What about me? I killed him."

"They will never know that."

"Doesn't seem all that hard to find out. Just track down the idiot with the signature choke marks and there you have your scapegoat."

Red raised his eyebrows. Ressler wasn't prone to talking about himself in a derogatory way. He took himself too serious for that. "Don't worry about it. I won't let it interfere with your assignment."

"Good to know." He fell silent and drained his coffee cup. One of its sides had a small tear and he worried at it with one blunt fingernail. "Anything else?"

"Did you manage to find James Rainfield?"

"Yes. He was skinned. Tongue and the tendons of his wrists cut. He won't be helping us find Blofeld anytime soon, even if he does wake up."

Red clacked his tongue. "That is unfortunate. What about Anasenko Yevgenieva?"

"We'll have her brought in the moment Boscoe and I leave for the harbour tomorrow."

"You're certain Solomon White is going to let you get away with that?"

Ressler frowned. He was slowly but certainly ripping the carton cup into shreds, but seemed unaware he was doing so. "What do you know about Solomon? Did you happen to send him into this direction, too?"

"Heavens, no! I'd never heard of the man until now. He does not, however, seem the type of man to meekly let himself get shoved to the side and be fine with that."

Ressler shrugged. "We'll see." He put on a pair of sunglasses. They hid the smudges below his eyes, but not the garrotte scar on his neck or the stubble that was beginning to approach a short beard instead of an unshaven look, and for a moment Red had trouble picturing him in a suit, acting like a government agent. Somehow, he had the feeling that Ressler was forgetting what that picture looked like as well.

"Donald." Ressler froze. "You're no good to anyone dead."

The man shot him a toothy grin that was gone within a split second. "Don't worry about me, 'Dad'. I can handle the leftover competition."

"History is full of vainglorious heroes who died young."

"I'm not your champion. I'll live to see thirty-five." He got up from his sprawl, wavered for a moment before straightening and looking down on Red. "If he's going to come at me, it'll be either near the club or at the harbour. He'll either shoot me straightaway, or follow us to the container and then try to kill me. If you care as much as you say you do, you might want to be around when he tries anything. Keep the cops from spoiling your little game of chess."

"Perhaps you should wear a vest," Reddington suggested.

Ressler nodded. "That's the plan," he said.

Lizzie noticed with some satisfaction that Claus Sacher could just not seem to get comfortable. He sat at his table, hands cuffed together, shifting in his seat, sometimes hunched over, sometimes leaning back, never relaxed.

Bruised balls truly must be painful.

He should feel lucky she'd only punted him when he was already down instead of kicking up with her foot stretched out when he was standing.

Ruptured balls were known to be _agonizing_.

"So," she said from where she was standing with her back against the mirror. "Let's hear it, Claus."

He balefully stared up at her. Even though she'd kicked him when he was unconscious, he seemed to know the throbbing agony between his legs hadn't appeared by magic, and that Lizzie was responsible.

_I'm the magic ball-crushing fairy. By midnight your manhood will turn into a pumpkin._

"I'm not saying anything without my lawyer," he said. And then, "So you're a cop. What about Stone?"

"Aaron? That moron? Don't make me laugh." Technically, she wasn't lying. She wasn't a cop but an FBI agent, and it wasn't her fault Claus got it wrong. She wasn't obligated to correct him. Aaron Stone wasn't a cop or FBI either, even if the man pretending to be him was.

Claus, like a good boy, followed his own logic. "So you were playing him." Lizzie shrugged. The more he reached his own conclusion, the better. The fact that he was talking without having to be persuaded was good. It was also one of the reasons she was conducting this interview instead of Cooper. Claus' weakness was women. She'd seen it in his face when he kissed her hand in the Lion's Den. Claus loved women. He loved them because they were generally smaller and weaker than him, and because he liked to look at them. Undoubtedly he saw himself as some rugged Casanova, a diamond-in-the-rough ladies' man who could sweep any girl off her feet. In some way, he probably wasn't even aware that the way he saw women wasn't normal. The interest he had shown in her at the club had been genuine, even if it had been based on some vague desire to one-up 'Aaron'. She had the feeling Claus hadn't been able to keep a girl for longer than a couple of weeks before she noticed something was not altogether right with him, and left him. And she would have been right. He didn't see women as anything but an object of forced affection or lust, something to either charm and take or overpower and hurt. He couldn't help responding to Liz even if she'd have cut his balls off instead of kicked them. Especially in the little dress she was still wearing.

"And he wasn't on to you." Despite the fact that he hadn't been aware she was more than an empty-headed tart either, he sounded a little smug.

"He's _male_," Lizzie said contemptuously, because emphasizing that Aaron was male confirmed Claus' masculinity as well, and affirmed the fact that Liz was _not_, and that she thought he was beneath her. _Sorry Ressler. I don't really think you're that much of a pig. _She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up and inward with her upper arms, and saw his eyes focus on her chest. "Of course he wasn't on to me. You men are all the same; show them a pair of tits and a nice ass and all sane thought goes right out of the window."

"I knew there was something off about you," Claus muttered.

Lizzie smirked. "Oh, really."

"Yeah."

"Where were you on Wednesday evening, Claus?"

"At the Lion's Den. Got at least fifteen to twenty witnesses—among who your buddy Aaron."

"You weren't there all night."

"Says who?"

Lizzie said an internal little prayer and placed the picture of the woman with the roughed up face and the missing fingertips on the table in front of him. "She does."

Ressler had told her Claus was bad at bluffing. She saw that first hand now, too. His ears reddened and his eyes were shifty as he said, "I don't know who that is."

_Bingo. _Lizzie leaned over the table, giving him a clear view into her cleavage. He looked up from the picture to her face to her breasts and back again, unable to stop himself. He grimaced, squirmed in his chair.

_Are you enjoying all those nice stimulants, Claus? Look at that pretty, bruised face and remember what it felt like slamming your fist into that mouth. Remember what it felt like to rape her, and the way she screamed when you cut off her fingers. And now look at my breasts, aren't they pretty and firm? You love tits, don't you? I hope getting hard hurts like a __**bitch**__, you fucking bastard!_

"Her name is Elenna Mira. And you should know her. She's identified you, Claus. We showed her your picture and she's confirmed it was you who did this to her." She smiled at him, calling up her dimples. "You're looking at some very nice charges. Oh, and we found Rainfield, too."

"Rainfield?" he sounded confused. "Who's Rainfield?"

"You should know. You shot him in the arm. On Wednesday night, right after you raped Elenna Mira. Perhaps you know him under another name. Skinny."

"I didn't shoot him," Claus blurted out. "Stone did. And he was alive when I last saw him, which was…" He shut up abruptly, so Lizzie finished for him: "Wednesday night. Yes, Claus, we know. We know you helped take Rainfield down. But we don't believe that was the last time you saw him." With a snap, she placed another picture in front of him, covering Elenna Mira's face. This photo was of Skinny, as she and Ressler had found him, hanging from the ceiling in that storage place. The local police Photoshop adept had played with the levels a bit, and Skinny's raw front looked particularly gruesome. "Don't tell me you weren't involved. We know you like knives, we know you like to cut people."

"No!" said Claus. He stared, shocked, at Skinny's picture, although not so much horrified by the terrible injuries portrayed as by the implication that he was responsible for them. "No, I didn't do this! I had nothing to do with this."

"He's still alive, Claus. Once he's implicated you, you're going to jail for so long they'll be using new technology by the time you get out. If…they don't give you the chair."

"I didn't have anything to do with this! He was fine when I last saw him."

"Then who did this to him?"

"I don't know! Boscoe? He was the one who took him away. Or maybe his boss, I don't know!"

"Who is Boscoe's boss?"

"I don't know."

"Who is his boss, Claus?"

The repetition was a mistake. Claus regained his composure. "I told you I don't know," he said gruffly. "I want my lawyer."

"Who told you Boscoe was the man to approach for this shipment?"

He stared up at her, torn between his desire to show her he was stronger than her and self-preservation.

Lizzie tried ridicule. "You don't know, do you? You really don't know anything. You're just a rapist pig with a superiority complex. You were hoping this shipment would bring you the riches you needed so you could go and play with the big fish." She leaned over again. "Pigs don't swim, Claus. My lovely Aaron is going to get it all, and then I'm going to close in on them with my big tight net and get them all in one fell swoop."

"Stone won't win it, either," he shot back. "He'll be dead before midnight." He leered at her. "How about that, eh, cop lady? What are you gonna do now? Call him back and hope he'll return to you like a dog? Do you really think he'll value you above 40 million dollars—and we're only talking about the first shipment here? Or are you going to tell him he's going to get killed if he don't walk away? How are you going to explain that to him, eh?"

"Who is going to kill him?" Lizzie asked, keeping her voice cool even though her chest tightened. "Boscoe? Solomon?" She hesitated, then added, "Blofeld?" but the name clearly meant nothing to him.

"Wait and see, lady," Claus sneered, clanking his cuffs on the table. "I ain't saying anything more until I see my lawyer."

And no matter how much she strutted, threatened, derided or poked, he wouldn't say anything else.

Lizzie met Cooper outside the interview room, where he was standing next to a short, black-haired woman who seemed familiar but whom she couldn't place immediately.

"So there will be more shipments like this one," Cooper mused, ignoring the woman for the moment.

Lizzie nodded. "What about Ressler?"

"Find him. Tell him an attempt on his life seems imminent." He sighed. "Give him a Kevlar vest."

Lizzie stared at him, incredulous. "We're going ahead with this? Even though we know either Boscoe or Solomon or, as far as we know, maybe even Blofeld himself will try to kill him? We have the name of the boat, we know when it'll arrive. We have the serial of the container. Laying hands on the container was our main objective from the beginning. Why risk Ressler's life if we have what we wanted?"

Cooper regarded her steadily. "If we pull out now, we might never get close to Blofeld again. Reddington's intention may have been to capture the drugs, but our taskforce isn't Narcotics. We go for the people on the Blacklist. Blofeld was and remains our target."

"But…"

"Do you think Agent Ressler would rather abandon the mission?" And that had her stumped, because she knew Ressler would rather paint a target on his chest than walk away. Cooper nodded at her. "Find him. Tell him what you've learned. Don't let him out of your sight, but be discreet and don't put yourself in harm's way. Agent Plant will take over the interrogation."

Agent Plant. Louisa-Anne Plant. Meera's replacement. So that was who the black-haired woman was. She couldn't be any further from Lizzie's interest, but as the woman smiled, showing small teeth with crooked lateral incisors, and held out her hand, Liz felt she couldn't pretend she wasn't there, and shook it.

"Louanne. Nice to meet you, Agent Keen." Her hand was tiny, with thin, narrow-tipped fingers, but her grip was firm.

"Liz. Nice to meet you too." She tried to be friendly, but it was hard with Claus sitting there, smiling at the mirror as if he knew she was there. _If not for that camera over there, I'd go back in and castrate that fucker with a pen. If Ressler could go into the interview room and half-strangle a suspect without any repercussions, why shouldn't I?_

"Agent Ressler is your partner?" Louanne asked.

"Yes." _He's also the guy I occasionally, and unprofessionally, fuck on a non-romantic basis. Like last night. When he turned me down. But he spooned up to me this morning, and the thought of him lying on the ground with a bullet in the head makes me feel like puking._ "I'd rather not have him shot dead."

"I get that," Louanne said dryly. "I'll try to find out more about who plans to kill him."

"I think I know already. Solomon White. Boscoe has no real reason to take him out; he's the one to gather all of them here. What we need to know is who's behind all this, but I'm afraid Claus simply doesn't know."

"I'll let you know the moment I find out."

"Let me give you my number then. It's my Nicky phone, so please address me as such if you call me, in case I'm…compromised."

They exchanged phone numbers. "So," Lizzie said, as she turned to go. "You're officially part of the team now?"

"Apparently."

"Welcome. Good luck with your interview."

Another crooked-toothed smile. "He's a violent rapist, isn't he? You already made him confess to that woman's rape—he didn't deny it, after you showed him that picture of Rainfield. He'll talk himself into a corner, even with a lawyer. He can't help himself; his brain is wired that way. I think I'll enjoy sparring with him." Suddenly, Lizzie felt a little bit better. "Go save your partner. I've got this covered."

"Right." With a final nod at Louanne, Lizzie walked towards the armoury of the Police Station to request two Kevlar vests and a canister of pepper spray. Just to be sure. She also wondered if she should call Aaron's Dad and ask if he could help.


	16. Chapter 16

Lizzie called Ressler and asked him to meet her at Nicky's place. She went there herself, or rather one of the detectives took her and dropped her off, as she'd gone to the port with Ressler and driven back to the precinct with the arresting officers. The driver was the same woman who had been keeping watch in front of the warehouse, Susan Moore. She was still driving her grey stake-out car, and had volunteered to take Ms. Coxx/Mrs. Keen home.

Mrs. Keen sat in the backseat with a large Macy's bag holding two Kevlar vests. Susan Moore's usual partner, whose name also was Susan but who was called Sue for clarity's sake, sat in the passenger seat.

Sue cleared her throat. "He was the one, then?" she asked. "Claus Sacher? He raped and mutilated Elenna Mira on the night of the raid?"

Lizzie nodded, distracted. "Yes."

"Did he confess?"

"Not officially, but he will."

"That's not the reason you're actually here, is it? The raid, and this guy."

"No." She smiled apologetically. "But I don't have the clearance level to tell you what's going on."

Sue and Susan shared a look, a shrug and a grimace, and simultaneously said, "So what else's new?", which made Lizzie laugh.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It must be pretty frustrating having us invade your beat and start snapping orders."

"Oh, the orders I don't mind so much," Susan said. "It's the secrecy. My boss doesn't coat his commands in sugar either, but at least I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. The FBI expects you to jump when they call it, but they never say why, or what. Makes it kinda hard to time your jump, if you know what I'm saying."

"I think I do." She sighed. Sometimes she got sick and tired of FBI regulations, too. "Doesn't mean we don't appreciate what you're doing, though. Even if we're assholes about it. If we are, just remember that maybe ignorance is bliss, and we know things that makes us shit our pants in fear if they would come to pass."

Sue turned back to look at her. "Is that it? It's fear makes you guys behave like assholes, not arrogance? Present company excepted, of course." She grinned.

Lizzie smirked. "Sometimes. And sometimes we're just assholes. Present company excepted."

Susan took a left to drive up to Nicky's flat. "Your Director Cooper seems quite nice. At least he says 'thank you' like he means it when you bring him coffee."

"You brought him coffee?" Lizzie was amazed.

"I'm always hoping to bribe my superiors into divulging more than they want," Susan said. "Volunteering coffee and being a woman sometimes helps."

Lizzie snorted. "Not with Cooper it doesn't. He's used to female employees; he won't cut you any slack."

"So I noticed. Pity." She made a final turn to the right and stopped before the flat. "Here you are. Good luck with whatever it is you're after. If you need help, let us know."

"Thanks," Lizzie said, got out of the car and rode the elevator up to her apartment.

The moment she opened the door a small mobile air alarm went off near her feet and made her stumble.

"Gaah…damn…Theo!"

"Waaaaaaaw!" Theo bleated, showing a wide expanse of pink, ribbed palate and red tongue. He managed to sound demanding, pleading, outraged and hurt at the same time, and Lizzie realized that she had forgotten to feed him this morning.

"Oh," she said, automatically adopting the tone she'd always used with Hudson, "Oh, you poor little cat! Didn't you get any food this morning? Awww." She made her way to the kitchen, greatly hindered by Theo, who effortlessly moved exactly where she was going to place her feet and caused her to trip three times over ten yards. She gave him more kibbles and something out of a tin, and fresh water as well. The cat devoured the tinned food in two minutes ("Aww, you're just like Ressler!" Lizzie cooed) and then moved on to the kibbles with decidedly less enthusiasm.

By the time Ressler rang the bell, Lizzie had cleaned out the cat litter, eaten lunch and dressed in more sensible clothes, and Theo lay curled up on her laptop bag. He got up immediately when Ressler entered, though, and flung himself in his lap when he sat down in a chair.

Bemused, Ressler stared at the red cat spread out on his thighs.

"I think he likes you," Lizzie offered.

"Apparently."

"Let me guess, you don't actually like cats."

"I'm not really a pet-person," he shrugged, stroking the cat's striped side as if he were hypnotized to do so. "I don't dislike animals; I just don't have time for them. This one is ok, though." He looked up from Theo's purring form. "What'd you get?"

"Claus told us someone was going to try to kill you. Today. Before midnight."

Ressler nodded, unsurprised. "Solomon."

"Probably. I got you a vest."

He quirked a smile. "How considerate of you. Does it say 'Police' in big yellow letters on the back?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "No. I got you a blank one."

She gave him a shortened version of her interview with Claus, her opinion on what he knew—jack shit, really—and Cooper's thoughts on this case. To her annoyance, Ressler agreed with Cooper wholeheartedly, and didn't even hesitate before saying that of course, he'd see the whole thing through to the end. As for Solomon, he wasn't all that concerned. "The man's a Neanderthal. Now I know that he'll be coming, I'm ready for him."

"A Neanderthal with a gun can still blow your head off."

Ressler shrugged. "I'll make sure to duck. Don't worry. If he could shoot an Uzi in a thirty by thirty room without hitting anybody, he's not going to pose a threat to me."

Lizzie resolved to take Cooper's words to heart and not let Aaron out of her sight. She watched him lean his head on his arm, absentmindedly stroking the cat, then asked, "What have you been up to, this morning?"

"I had coffee with my dad."

"Reddington?"

He smirked. "Do I have any other dads?"

"But…why? Did he call you?" She searched for her phone but no, she didn't have any missed calls or awaiting messages.

"Mm. He asked to bring you along, but you were with Claus and I figured that if he were hard-pressed enough to contact me directly, it was me he needed to see most urgently."

"And? Did he?"

Ressler nodded, frowning, and updated her on their intelligence on the container. The whole story made Lizzie sigh and wish she had a cat on her lap as well. She noted down the serial number Red had hidden away in the name of a picture with flowers he'd sent to Aaron's phone. "So what are the chances this whole thing is one of Red's schemes and we're left with just enough progress to not be shut down by the state secretary?"

"You mean: is it actually a plan to get enough leverage over party A so party B will give him information he needs to access some database party C has been adding to in order to get intel on Berlin, or someone who will lead him to Berlin?" He huffed quietly. "Last year, I'd have said yes. Now, I'm not so certain. We know he's looking for Berlin—hell, we're dying to get our hands on him ourselves. Reddington doesn't need to play us to get us to cooperate." He knuckled his temple. "I don't know. All I know is that I want to find that container, and then find Blofeld, shave off this annoying stubble and park Aaron Stone somewhere where he won't bother anyone." He pursed his lips. "I might keep the Harley, though."

Lizzie chuckled. "You love the Harley, don't you?"

"I love the Harley."

"Have you had lunch yet?"

He blinked. "No."

She made a 'help yourself' gesture and he went into the kitchen to finish off her bread.

"So," Lizzie said, when he sat back down with a plate full of bread and vainly tried to keep Theo from using him as a Bed & Breakfast, "Solomon. How are we going to keep him from killing you after you've made it clear he isn't going to be the one taking the drugs home?"

"He won't kill me inside the club," Ressler said, chewing thoughtfully. "He's not that stupid, and Boscoe won't let him—unless Solomon goes crazy and shoots down Boscoe as well. He might come for me when I leave, though, on the parking lot. It's always noisy and busy outside; he could shoot me without anyone noticing if he used a silencer. Or on my way back to the motel. I don't want him anywhere near this place," he added, indicating the little flat. "too many innocent bystanders. If he's smart, he'll tamper with the Harley, make me blow myself up or crash into a wall. But that isn't his style."

"What is Solomon's style?" Lizzie asked, intrigued but slightly alarmed as Ressler calmly listed the different ways he might die before the day was done.

"A roared challenge followed by an axe to the face." He took another bite of bread. "Or a sawn-off. That's jam, you don't like jam, stop trying to steal my sandwich."

"A Kevlar vest won't protect you from an axe to the face," Lizzie said, picking Theo up and placing him on the couch, and Ressler scoffed.

"Give me some credit. I can shoot faster than that idiot can swing an axe."

"Still, I'll be your protective detail. In case he doesn't bring an axe but a shotgun."

"There's a chance Reddington will provide some kind of protection, too. Or not, depending on whether he can be bothered or not." He shrugged, then sighed and watched with a wry smile as Theo nimbly jumped onto his knees and started licking jam from his plate. "Your cat takes way too many liberties."

"It's not my cat." She picked him up again and put him on the ground. "My dog never swiped anything from the table. I'll see if I can stake out the club and make sure he doesn't hide somewhere after Boscoe chooses you. Maybe we can arrest him before he tries anything."

Ressler urgently shook his head. "No. No arrests that close to the club. I don't want to arrest anyone in the open until I've opened that container with my own hands."

"So you'd rather have Solomon come at you bro with a shotgun and shoot him than arrest him?"

He scowled. "It's less conspicuous than arresting him."

"Uhuh."

"Also, I'm looking forward to kneecapping that psychotic son of a bitch," Ressler muttered under his breath.

Lizzie pretended she hadn't heard him. "Perhaps I can get Louanne as backup. Or Susan Moore."

"Louanne?" Ressler repeated. "As in Louanne Plant, that CIA woman?"

"FBI woman, as of this morning," Lizzie corrected him. "Cooper officially made her part of the team. Why?"

He grumbled. "Nothing. Susan Moore, was that the cop who…"

"Yes. She's nice, seems competent and she actually enjoys helping us. She gave me a ride back here."

"Friendly and cooperative cops, that's a new one."

"Belittling them somehow seems to annoy them. They're weird that way."

"I have never met a detective who was friendly and cooperative without me punching my badge down his throat first."

"Maybe you should say 'please' to them once in a while," Lizzie suggested. "Or 'thank you'."

Ressler shrugged, dismissing the subject. "Where do you keep your coffee?"

"Would you like some?"

He smirked. "Yes please. Thank you."

As Louanne Plant's transfer to the Post Office hadn't been fully completed yet, Lizzie requested, and received, Susan Moore as a temporary partner as she went to the Lion's Den decked out in her Nicky Coxx gear but carrying her gun and with her badge hidden in her hand bag. Susan seemed thrilled to be included in the mission. Part of that thrill seemed to be the opportunity to wear make-up and big glittery earrings. She as well had put on leisure wear: skinny jeans and a low-cut, deep purple top with black sequins on the front. Her gun was hidden below a flaring duffle coat. At Lizzie's request, she had changed the licence plates of her grey car, and they arrived well before eight to find a parking spot where they could keep eyes on the front door of the club.

After the beautiful, cloudless day, the evening had turned chilly, and as Susan parked the car, several fire baskets and fire drums were just being lit on the terrain surrounding the club.

It was ungodly busy.

"Why are there so many people?" Lizzie asked as she got out of the car, blinking in the flickering firelight and staring despairingly at the throngs milling about. Especially close to the club, the parking lot was fully occupied—mainly big, American cars. People were using them as seats, sitting on the hood and even on top of the roofs. At least fifty bikers were driving around the grounds, their engines screaming and chrome pistons gleaming. More men and women stood laughing and talking in groups spread out over the lot. There even were a couple of children running around. Many had brought their own ghetto blasters or were dancing to the music rolling out of the open doors and windows of the club. Some morons had brought air guns and were shooting at empty bottles lined up on a drum.

"It's Sunday, isn't it?" Susan said. She pointed up at a banner on the roof Lizzie hadn't noticed before: **SUNDAY BEERFEST AND RACES – try the raffle while you're at it!**

"Are you kidding me?" Lizzie cried. "That wasn't here before! It wasn't there yesterday! How do you attract people to a beerfest if you only show the invitation on the day itself? What kind of marketing is that?"

"They probably put it up this morning. My guess is that it's a weekly thing, mainly focused on the regulars." She made a gesture that encompassed the bikers. "They probably don't need any extra visitors."

Lizzie's eyes roamed the place. People everywhere. Sound everywhere. Lights and shadows everywhere. "How the hell are we going to keep tabs on Solomon in this crowd?" She shielded her eyes as some pyromaniac dropped twenty tea lights into a drum and doused the whole of it with a glass of water. The resulting jet flame all but blinded her.

"It shouldn't be that hard," Susan said. Like Liz, she was leaning her back against the car, an unopened beer can in one hand, scanning the crowd with narrowed eyes. "He's black, isn't he? Look at the crowd. Most of them are white. Not all of them, but the better part of them is. Just keep your eyes on the door. He has to leave first, right?"

"He may not be here yet," Lizzie worried. "Or he might already be inside, with Boscoe. No, Boscoe won't be here yet, Ressler said he wasn't here before eight the last time either." She cringed and forced herself to look away from the people with the air guns. The cracking pop of their shots made her nervous.

Where could Solomon be? Where was his car? There was a big black hummer next to the central walkway, was that his car? No, it had a big flaming skull painted on one side, so it probably belonged to one of the Lion's Den's regulars. So where was he? It was approaching eight, and no big black guy stepped up to the door. Was he already inside? God, she wished those bikers would stop circling around; the noise was terrible.

_Relax. They have to speak to Boscoe first. Even if he's already inside, we'll tag him when he comes out._

_But what if he won't show and is lying in ambush for Ressler when he goes to the motel?_

She started when Susan nudged her. "Is that your man?"

For one moment she overlooked him completely, intent as she was on spotting a black man, but then she noticed Ressler coasting in. "Yes," she nodded. She wished he were wearing his helmet, but guessed he didn't want to restrict his vision.

He drove up to a row of motorcycles and parked his bike next to the last one with a neat little swerve. One of the bottle shooters cracked off a shot, causing Ressler to tense and whip his head in that directions just as he dismounted, and at that point one of the bikers, a big man in a brown leather jacket and a black helmet, drove up to him, snapped up his visor and bellowed, "STONE!"

"That's him! That's him, he's that biker!" Lizzie hissed, and then she saw the shotgun and thought, _Oh god he's doing it __**now**__! I'm too late!_ She aimed and shot, but the shotgun was faster. It let rip a blast of sound and fire and lead, and it hit Ressler straight in the chest from a less than fifteen feet distance. The impact blew him off his feet and slammed him to the ground three yards down the road. He landed on his back, his head bounced on the pavement and he kept lying there, stunned.

Lizzie's bullet hit Solomon in the shoulder, causing him to drop the shotgun—and then things suddenly went very, very fast.

Lizzie shot Solomon again, this time hitting his leg, and began to run towards Ressler thinking only _not in the head, don't be hit in the head!_.

The black Hummer roared to life and left its parking spot, screeched to a halt not five feet away from Ressler's prone body and spat forth three large men, all wearing jackets with the same skull as was painted on their vehicle. Two of the men grabbed the toppling Solomon, dragged him from his bike and hauled him into the back of the Hummer.

The third man, a particularly hulking specimen with a neck the size of Lizzie's waist and arms so muscular they made the sleeves of his jacket strain around his biceps, hurried towards Ressler, placed one hand on his chest, nodded to himself, grabbed him beneath the arms and lifted him to his feet like a child. Ressler flailed in his hold, off balance and barely able to support himself.

Lizzie aimed her gun at the big man. "Freeze!"

The man shot her a wide grin. "Dad sends his regards," he said, and shoved Ressler into her direction. Ressler reeled, still dazed, and more or less fell into her, breaking her line of sight. She was forced to catch him to keep him, and herself, standing. During the one second Lizzie was distracted, the Flaming Skull giant turned to his buddies in the Hummer and caught the key of Solomon's bike as they tossed it at him. The next moment he'd scooped up the shotgun, upended the bike from where it had fallen when Solomon had been torn away from it, shifted into the saddle, put the black helmet onto his head and followed the Hummer as it tore away. Susan Moore arrived just in time to choke on the bike's exhaust gasses.

The whole of it had taken about twenty seconds.

Around them, only a couple of people had even noticed something had happened. The gunshots had been terribly loud, but there was a lot of noise. They saw no blood, at first sight no wounded…and so no reason for panic. They ignored the two women supporting the floundering man and continued with what they were doing, blissfully and wilfully oblivious.

"Do we follow?" Susan, as bewildered by what had just happened as Liz herself, hopped up and down, torn between running back to her car and staying at Lizzie's side. In the end she settled for shoving her shoulder under Ressler's arm, helping to keep him upright. "Is he ok? Are you ok? What do you want to do? Shall I call it in?"

_Dad sends his regards._

Lizzie shook her head. She hastily tucked away her pistol and shoved her hand into the hole in Ressler's jacket, checking for blood—no. Below the layers of ruined clothing, the vest was damaged but the plates were intact. Solomon had used buckshot, not a slug. She heaved a giant sigh, wobbling as her knees grew weak with relief. He was alright. "No. Let them go. I think it's ok."

"_Ok?_ Those men just kidnapped your perp and stole his motorcycle!"

Lizzie ignored her.

Ressler, clutching at her to keep standing, or maybe trying to make her release him so he fall to his knees and hold his chest, drew in a huge, shuddering breath—the first he managed since he'd been shot.

"Oh…_ow_…" he wheezed.

"Let's get you inside," Susan said. "Before you fall down. He probably broke a rib with that shot."

"No. It's fine…I just…" he wheezed again and found purchase against a car, "need to…catch my breath." Wrestling one arm free he felt the back of his head. His palm came away bloodied. "Crap. I banged…my fucking head again."

"You should've worn a helmet," Susan said. The words came out so automatically, so bluntly that she slapped her hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I…I meet a lot of kids who…have accidents."

Ressler shot her an incredulous look and then started wheezing again, giddy with the adrenaline rush, pain and laughter, and brought out, "I don't think…many of them are in quite…the same situation…as me. Ahh. God. Stop making me laugh. It hurts like hell."

"I'm sorry," Lizzie said. She found herself still stroking his vest and made herself stop. "I hadn't expected him to come for you now. I thought he'd wait until you…until after…"

Ressler grinned at her. It seemed a bit manic to her, but at least it wasn't a corpse's grin. "Well I hadn't realized that he had a bike. Besides…You got him. Good job." The grin changed into a grimace of pain when he coughed and first clutched his chest and then his head. "God."

"Should we call and ambulance?" Susan asked.

Ressler shook his head. "No. I'm sore as hell but I'm not seeing double, and I don't actually think I've broken anything. No pierced lungs in any case. Keen can patch me up after I've met with…with my contact. What time is it?"

Lizzie checked her watch. "Five to."

"Ok." He took a few shallow breaths, wincing at the pain in his ribs but apparently regaining some of his equilibrium. He reached into his pocket. "Any of you ladies happen to have anything to drink on you?"

"Uh. I guess I brought my beer along," Susan said, showing her left hand which was, indeed, holding her unopened can in a death grip. It was shaking a little. "As a matter of fact, I can't seem to let go of it."

Ressler wheezed another laugh. He was a little shaky himself. So was Liz. She gingerly pried Susan's fingers off the can while Ressler pressed two white pills from a strip, opened the can, let the foam fizz over her fingers and handed it to Ressler, who swallowed his aspirins down with two great gulps of it. He then passed the can back to her, and she took a few big swallows as well before handing it to Susan, who finished the beer and tossed the can into one of the merrily burning fire baskets.

"I'm not sure drinking alcohol is a good idea when suffering from head injuries," Susan said.

"Then you should have brought a C

oke instead," Ressler said pleasantly. He rubbed his neck, wiped his red-stained hand on his pants and asked, "How badly am I bleeding?"

Lizzie made him turn around to assess the damage. She was relieved to see that he'd merely reopened the cut that was already there and not caved his skull in or something. Head injuries always bled like crazy, but the flow was already slowing to a trickle, and after some careful blotting with a spit-moistened tissue it stopped completely. She couldn't get all the blood out of his hair and it stood out in rust-red spikes; she was more concerned with his ribs anyway, but there was very little she could do about that now. Or at all: all she could do was tape him in, later, and give him more painkillers. The aspirin would see him through the next couple of hours, she hoped.

"Do you want to ditch the vest?"

He shook his head. "It'll give me some support. I don't think any of the plates have caved in. Besides, people might look at me strangely if I ditch my body armour in full view of everyone around us here."

Lizzie shrugged. 'Everyone around us here' were deaf, blind and mute, or rather: listening to music and the growl of motor engines, focused on their direct neighbour and their machines, and cheerfully shouting at one another. "Will you be alright?"

"I need to talk to the man, not fight him. I'll be fine." He looked around. "He must already be inside; I didn't see him come in. Then again, I was distracted."

She nodded. "We'll be here, waiting. If you don't come out within half an hour I'm coming up guns blazing."

"That'd be hot," he smirked, and all of a sudden she found it very hard not to yank down his head by the ears and kiss him senseless.

_Not in front of the sweet innocent cop,_ she admonished herself. _Maybe not at all._ "Just make sure you come back down in one piece, ok?"

"Ok," he said. He pushed himself straight from his slouch against the car with a groan, took a few steadying breaths and walked into the club.

Kevlar vests are heavy.

Part of the feeling of security and safety provided by body armour was that weight. It made one feel more grounded, more layered, protected.

It also was incredibly painful to lug around and up a staircase when something with the force of a sledgehammer had just smashed you in the chest.

Ressler spent a full minute gasping and cursing at the top of the stairs before he had recovered enough to knock on the door to Outside.

The porter let him in and left the door open. "Less people come through this door every time I open it," he said. He took in Ressler's torn upper clothes. "Was there a disturbance? I thought I heard gunfire, but I couldn't see what happened from here."

Ressler walked to the railing of the roof terrace and had a perfect view of the all-obscuring BEERFEST streamer. He smiled. _Did Reddington's men hang it there? I'm inclined to think that they did. _"I'm the last person to come through this door. Well, apart from Boscoe, I hope."

"He should be here any moment now," the porter said. He cast another look at the ruin of Ressler's jacket. "Should we fear a police raid?"

"No. No one was hurt."

"You're wearing a bullet proof vest."

"I came prepared," Ressler nodded. He sat down in one of the chairs underneath the gazebo, swallowing another groan. It wouldn't do to show weakness now. "Relax. Go and take a look for yourself if you don't trust me. If there are any cops down there, I didn't see 'em, and if they're there anyway, they're here for the races and the beer. Speaking of which…"

The porter gave him a bottle. Ressler resisted pressing it against his painful head and took a sip instead. A few minutes later Boscoe entered the roof terrace.

"Ah," he said, looking from the porter to the open door to Ressler. "Did I miss anything?"

"Nothing out of place below?" the first asked.

Boscoe shook his head. "No? Should there be? It's hectic. It's Sunday." He took a beer from the portable ice box near the porter's seat, opened it with his lighter and plunked down in a chair opposite of Ressler. "Oh," he said, noticing his shredded shirt. "I see." He shook a cigarette out of a package, lit it and asked, "Solomon?"

"Let's say that I convinced him to return to whatever hole he crawled out of."

"You must be very convincing."

"You have no idea."

"This hole you made him return to…" Boscoe blew out a snake of smoke. "is he likely to come crawling back out of it again?"

Ressler smiled coldly. "No." As a matter of fact he had no idea what Reddington would do with Solomon. Kill him? Interrogate him? He didn't really care as long as the man wouldn't get in his way again.

"What about the chances of people stumbling upon this hole and finding him there?"

"Christ, Boscoe, when did you turn into an old woman?" He sat up, fought down another spasm of pain and said, "I take care of things. He's _gone_. Like Shuo and Bani. I don't know where Claus is, but as he's not here, I think it's safe to say that I _won_."

"This isn't a game, Stone." No mention of Claus being detained. Good.

"Of course it's a game," Ressler said, noticing and hating the echo of Reddington's words. "'Loyalty, dedication, cunning and ruthlessness'. Your own words. I've been loyal: I saved your son." Boscoe didn't move, but when Ressler added the boy's name, an almost unnoticeable flash of emotion crossed his face. "I've been dedicated and cunning: I got you your time and date for the ship. The Havanna 5 comes in tomorrow, and they'll be offloading it the same day. I'll tell you where they're stashing the containers tomorrow, when you're helping me transport its contents back to my city. And I've been ruthless. I'm the only one left." He narrowed his eyes, channelling as much of his violent, dangerous and highly pissed-off inner Aaron Stone as his features were capable of showing. "I won. And I don't take kindly to being fucked with."

"No one is fucking with you." He took a final drag before stubbing out his cigarette. "If Claus truly won't show, and Solomon is gone, you're right. You've won. The drugs are yours to distribute." Suddenly he smiled widely, a, pleased expression on his face. "And I can't say I'm not happy about that. After all, you did save my son." He pulled a tiny plastic bag filled with white powder out of his chest pocket and held it up. "One last line before we're opening the container tomorrow?"

_Oh god yes!_ His blood surged in anticipation of the sweet, cold, invigorating and most importantly: painkilling powder, making in his head, the cuts on his neck and fingers and his ribs pound, but he shook his head. As wonderful as getting high sounded, he'd really fucked his body up enough. The aspirin would start to work in an hour or so, he hoped. "No."

"It'd help for those bruises," Boscoe said, pointing at his chest.

"I bet it would. But I'm done playing."

"Apparently." With a disappointed glance that told Ressler that the man might be closer to being an addict than he had judged him to be, Boscoe dropped the bag back into his pocket, lit a new cigarette and said, "The ship comes in tomorrow. Do you know the time?"

"No. Presumably in the morning if it's scheduled to unload the same day."

"True. It's a big ship. They'll need several hours to remove its cargo. Let's set a meeting at seven o' clock at the port, main building."

"Isn't that too early?"

Boscoe laughed. "The port area is always busy, Stone. Day and night. At seven at least we'll have some daylight left to find our way, and under the cover of night we can start loading the goods into the trucks I promised when this all began."

He and Ressler worked out the details of their plan and Ressler made it clear that while Aaron had no problems whatsoever with Boscoe, he wouldn't bat an eye before shooting him in the heart if he thought he was double-crossing him. Boscoe assured him that now Aaron was selected as the recipient dealer, there would be no double-crossing. A quarter of an hour later, Ressler slowly made his way down the stairs, hoping he would never have to climb them again, walked up to his Harley and swung himself into the saddle. Riding it was incredibly unpleasant, as he had to lean forward a little, but he hoped the pain would diminish when his body settled. As he turned to leave, he caught the eye of Liz and the cop lady, who had joined a couple of women toasting marshmallows over a fire drum. Liz gave him a nod. Ressler gritted his teeth and drove off to Nicky's apartment. There was no reason to go to the motel and try to lure Solomon out there.

Gun shot. Attempt failed. Aaron Stone lived to save the day.

He didn't have to wait long before Susan Moore's car drove up to Nicky's flat building and Liz got out. She exchanged a few words with the woman inside, waved and turned to Ressler, who stood with his back to the wall next to the front door.

"All set?" she asked, letting the both of them in.

He nodded. "Tomorrow evening. Meet up at the main office at seven, then on to lot 5 Black. We have to have the place surrounded well in advance. He'll be using three trucks. My guess is that he'll spread out the cargo holding the drugs and hide them among whatever he's transporting." He grunted as the elevator went up, thereby briefly changing his mass and making his head and his ribs give a painful throb. The aspirins weren't helping much, he reflected.

"Right," Lizzie said, as she opened the door to her apartment and locked it behind her. "I'll get my first aid kit. Or have you changed your mind about going to see a doctor?"

"All they're going to prescribe is bed rest. You can't set busted ribs." He very gingerly shrugged out of his jacket and began peeling off the remains of his shirt. Lizzie helped him remove the Kevlar vest and the sleeveless shirt he'd worn beneath it.

"Perhaps. But they could have given you stronger painkillers. Oh, look at that. That's going to be beautiful tomorrow."

Ressler stared at the spectacular bruise spread over the entire left side of his chest. He wasn't bleeding at all; if he'd been shot with a gun the impact would probably have driven the armoured plate right into his skin, but the buckshot had spread out and merely pounded him like a wrecking ball. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and he might have to reassess his original thought that he hadn't broken any ribs, but losing the heavy vest already made him feel better.

Lizzie wrapped a few yards of bandages around his chest, more for support's sake than anything else, cleaned out the cut on his head and installed him on the couch with five pillows and a gallon of orange juice.

"If you want to go to bed and sleep, that's fine with me, too," she said, as she handed him a bag of frozen peas in a pillow case. "You must be beat."

"It's barely nine," Ressler protested. He pressed the improvised cold pack against the back of his head, grimacing at its first contact with his battered scalp and closing his eyes when the cold numbed some of the pain. It was a bit late to start cooling that injury now, but it felt good and who knew, it might take down some of the swelling. Lizzie was right, of course. He was beat. Literally. But getting off his butt, walk all the way to the bedroom and undress seemed like too much of an effort, so he remained where he was, feeling the peas thaw out between his head and the pillow.

"We could watch a movie?" Lizzie suggested.

"Sure." He would have preferred football. Or soccer. But a movie was fine.

Liz turned on the tv and zapped for a minute. "Oh," she said, apparently finding a channel that showed a movie she liked. "Perfect."

Ressler blearily watched the screen. An actress he knew but could not remember the name of appeared on screen. It was an older movie, and it looked like a costume drama. "What is this?"

"Out of Africa," Lizzie said, sounding smug for some reason.

…

The movie was heartrendingly boring. It lacked chases, explosions and guns. As far as Ressler could determine it had a lot of that actress he still couldn't place, African landscape, Black slaves, Syphilis and quiet, romantic scenes with Robert Redford.

It was the kind of movie Audrey might have liked. Romance, heartache, unanswered love…They had not had the same tastes in movies. Watching this movie was like taking sleeping pills. He managed to stay awake and watch it for thirty more minutes and then went out like a light.

The moment Ressler's head lolled to the side and did not jerk up again, Lizzie smiled. She changed the channel, found a thriller with Matthew Mcconaughey and sat back to watch that instead.

Ressler didn't wake up, not even when a bunch of Ku Klux Klan morons set a house on fire and a lot of people ran around on screen, yelling. He didn't even twitch when Theo stretched out on his thighs, and only murmured something in his sleep when Lizzie removed the now unfrozen pack of peas. Only when the movie was finished and she prodded him did he wake up, groggily brushed his teeth, took more painkillers and made himself as comfortable as possible somewhere in a nest of pillows on one side of the bed.

A few minutes later, Lizzie slid in next to him.

"How are your ribs?"

"Mm."

"Will you be able to get up tomorrow?"

"Probably. I might need a crane." He opened his eyes. "How did it end?" he asked. "Out of Africa?"

She racked her brain, trying to remember. "I don't know. Robert Redford dies."

"Huh. Figures."

"How do you mean?"

"That kind of movie…the one cool guy always dies."

She was silent for a few seconds. "Not always," she said quietly, and he huffed.

"I'm talking about the movie."

"So am I," she said.


	17. Chapter 17

Ressler woke up far too early—strange, how being shot more or less point blank by a howling maniac made one restless and paranoid, up to the point that you started awake with your hands raised to stop them doing it again. And again. And again.

It was only four o' clock and he felt like crap, but he was definitely finished sleeping so he got up, or at least tried to. He was unbearably stiff, his head ached, and it took him almost a minute and a lot of resolve to even get out of bed. Once he'd subjected his sore muscles to a scalding hot shower he felt a lot better, though, even if he didn't look it.

His chest now looked like a Picasso, only more organic: multicoloured swirls of black, red, several shades of purple and green. It complemented his sleeve; one of the bruises was shaped exactly like a cloud on his arm. His flesh had swollen up so that his ribs were no longer distinctly visible, but on the whole it wasn't as bad as he thought it had been. No one would call him limber and he wasn't going to do any jumping or heavy lifting, but he had no trouble moving, even though it hurt pretty badly.

_Hey, I apparently get turned on by pain. I should be a walking hard-on by now._

He wasn't, though, and nothing could be farther from his mind at the moment.

As he looked up from his black and blue chest and saw his face in the mirror he had a strange feeling of déjà vu—_Well hello Aaron Stone. You aren't looking so hot, man.—_that actually made him dizzily grab hold of the sink for support. _No_, he thought, _I'm not_. The shower had left him with a healthy flush and seven hours of sleep had done much to restore him, but he somehow looked pinched and the week-old stubble made his face appear blurry around the edges. Or maybe that was just condense and his head injury. He really needed a shave, he thought, annoyed that he couldn't have one. _Shave off Aaron_.

Liz was still asleep, so he quietly got dressed, made coffee for himself and drank it with two more aspirins. He desperately wanted to go running, work through the nervous tension that coiled in his stomach at the prospect of what would go down that evening, but figured that even if he did make the attempt, he wouldn't get far. Squatting down in front of a cupboard to get out a tin of coffee was strenuous enough, for the time being. Instead, he booted up Lizzie's laptop, cursing quietly as its brightly lit screen seared his eyes, and logged in onto the Quantico server so he could type and send his report of what had happened the night before. For some reason it did not have the same effect as a good early morning run, though, and left him restless and irritable. Part of his chagrin was owed to the fact that he had no idea exactly what had happened the night before, and that he had somehow completely forgot to ask where Solomon had been taken. Had Reddington delivered him to Cooper or the police? Had he survived Lizzie's bullets in the first place? Not knowing annoyed him, and not asking in the first place made him feel ashamed of himself. He should really call Reddington, but didn't feel up to it before breakfast.

Lizzie had not had the chance to buy groceries yet, and the prospect of eating yoghurt for breakfast actually made him gag, so he left, taking her house and car keys (you didn't go shopping on a Harley), to go and buy bread and orange juice.

Unfortunately, none of the stores was open yet at 6.30, something that had for some reason not occurred to him, and he ended up buying donuts and sandwiches at a small bakery that catered to night shifters and other early birds. They also had coffee, real coffee, and he bought a double espresso for himself and a cappuccino for Lizzie. He owed her one, he figured.

As he returned, he wondered what on earth he was supposed to do with himself for the rest of the day. Interrogate Claus? He didn't want to go to the police station, as chances someone was keeping an eye on him had grown exponentially now he had been selected for Blofeld's job. Then what? Simply hole up here until it was time to go to the harbour?

By now it was almost seven and he had had his breakfast. It was still too early to call Red—hell no it wasn't! It was never too early to call Reddington. Really, he should have done so right after he got up.

Ressler speeddialed Dad with petty satisfaction, smiling a little as it took the man not one but three rings to pick up. Even though his, "Aaron. How's the chest?" was as chipper as usual, his voice was sleep-husky and marginally slurry.

"Fine. I'm short one gun-toting subject, though. Any idea what might have happened to him?"

"Are you referring to the man with the leg and shoulder injuries who is now recuperating in the loving care of an anonymous figure of my own choosing?" Reddington asked. "And who will be delivered into custody of the local PD when his sudden appearance there will no longer potentially interfere with a certain cargo recovery later this day?"

"That's the one," Ressler said, his question already answered.

"I couldn't say," Red replied, voice now suave as ever, all traces of sleep gone. "How _is_ your chest? My friends reported to me that you were hit from a short distance and seemed…rather affected."

"It won't endanger the mission," Ressler reassured him, and the other man gave an audible sigh.

"I was enquiring after your _health_, Donald. I know you won't let it compromise the mission. I've been at shot at point blank range wearing body armour two times, and I recall it being very unpleasant."

Ressler shrugged, grimacing as the movement jarred his ribs. "It hurts. I'll live."

"How about the effects of taking drugs? Any unpleasant withdrawal symptoms?"

Invisible to Red, Ressler narrowed his eyes. "No," he said slowly. "None at all."

"Ah. Good! Another weight off my mind."

"Will you be there this evening?" Ressler asked, changing the topic.

"I will be around. Why?"

"Just wondering whether you'd planned another intervention. People I might shoot when they're on your payroll."

Reddington chuckled. "I doubt your life will be in danger this evening. But rest assured that if Blofeld deigns to show himself, I'll be there to point him out to you."

"What about Boscoe?"

"What about him? He's nothing, a proxy. Just another drug dealer. I doubt he knows anything relevant. Feel free to take him into custody and interview him."

"Oh, thank you," Ressler said sarcastically. He heard a few short puffs of air as Reddington laughed quietly.

"What I mean to say is that I doubt Boscoe has ever met the man face to face. Anasenko will have met him, even if she doesn't know who he is. When have you scheduled to have her brought in?"

"The moment Boscoe and I meet. I was thinking Liz might question her while I'm opening the container and making my arrest." That would also keep her conveniently out of harm's way if things did blow up. It wasn't that she couldn't handle herself; she just wasn't as good at it as he would like.

"Girl's talk," Reddington agreed. "Lizzie having a chat with her might be more effective than you hulking in that poor woman's space and losing your temper on her neck."

Ressler scowled. "I don't…"

"Make a habit of strangling Russian suspects? Only for me? I'm touched!" Ressler snorted, which made the other man chuckle again. "Good luck, Aaron. Give my regards to Nicky."

He hung up.

Ressler put the phone away and did another lap around the room, absentmindedly ordering Nicky's books alphabetically by author name in the book case when he noticed they weren't. He heard Lizzie potter about in the bathroom; she'd finally woken up, too.

He sighed. He couldn't wait for seven o' clock.

That evening, Aaron Stone met up with Davey Boscoe at the main office of the port, in plain sight, open as you please. They day had been cloudy, and daylight was fading rapidly. A fine mist of rain created halos around the streetlights that were blinking on all around the harbour. There were still plenty of people around, but the dark rendered them anonymous. Stone had arrived on foot, the Harley parked near the entrance. Boscoe arrived in a similar way.

"Stone," he acknowledged, smiling, his mouth stretched wide and his pupils huge in the stark light around the office.

_Cocaine, _Stone thought. _At least I hope so. I'd have to re-evaluate my original estimation of his intelligence if he's high on meth right now._ He gave a short nod, and the both of them set out for lot 5 black.

"Where are your trucks?"

Boscoe thumbed to a number of headlights waiting in front of the large vehicle gate. "They'll be circling round, can't use the route we're taking, obviously. What lot are we heading for?"

Stone told him, and Boscoe let his men know by cell phone.

"Are they your bikers?" Stone asked.

Boscoe shook his head, laughing. "No, man. My bikers aren't involved with this. They might take a hit once in a while, but this doesn't have anything to do with them."

_External contractors, then? _"So you want me to entrust my stuff to people I've never even seen before. Do they know they're transporting drugs?"

"Relax," Boscoe said soothingly. "I told you you could trust me and I meant it. I need to make a name for myself to set up a well-running business and that won't happen if I double-cross my clients."

"There will be more shipments?"

"That's the plan," Boscoe nodded.

"Who's conducting them? I mean, who's the man behind all this?"

Boscoe smiled crookedly but didn't reply, and Stone didn't push him. He could do that once he'd become Ressler again.

They continued on their way. Ressler had downloaded and memorized a map of the harbour; he found his way with relative ease. Every once in a while they met workmen, who they greeted and were hailed by in turn. Sometimes they avoided small groups of people that might pose a threat of discovery, but most of the time they simply walked the roads like they owned the place, and it paid off. Stone had brought his .36 Glock, just in case, but the further they got, the more confident he became that he wouldn't need to use it.

In the back of his mind he knew, of course, that a SWAT team led by Harold Cooper himself was in the near vicinity, and that, although pains had been taken to keep the disturbance to the absolute minimum, and they would keep well out of sight, there was literally no chance anyone would halt him and Boscoe. He chose not to think about it, though. If he did, it might affect the way he behaved, and he did not want that.

After twenty minutes, they reached lot 5 and entered the giant maze formed by the stacked containers. Stone hunched his shoulders, feeling cowed by the huge metal blocks rising up to 200 ft above his head. Next to him, Boscoe was babbling.

"Big place, huh? This is red, which way is black? Look at that one, it's huge, how do they even find a crane big enough to lift it onto a ship? These lanes are barely wide enough to pass on foot; I hope my men can get close with their trucks."

"I'm sure they will," Stone said.

They passed a sign that looked like a black square. Boscoe got out a piece of paper with the serial code of the container. Stone had memorized the alternative code. He started scanning the huge metal blocks.

"My name is special agent Keen," Lizzie introduced herself. The small, blonde woman looked up at her with a wary expression on her lovely features. "Are you Anasenko Yevgenieva?" The woman nodded. "Please state your answer aloud, for the recording," Lizzie said with a friendly smile. "You haven't done anything wrong, we just want to talk to you. Are you Anasenko Yevgenieva?"

"Yes," the girl said. Her low-pitched voice still had a heavy Russian accent. "Why am I here? I don't understand. And where's my son?"

"He's in the office with the nice police woman who was with me when we came to pick you up," Lizzie said. "Her name is Susan Moore. You can see him whenever you want. You're not under arrest. Like I said, I just wanted to talk to you. About your sister, Olesya."

"Lesenka? But…she's dead for four years!"

Lizzie frowned. "Lesenka?"

Anasenko waved her hands. "Olesya. Lesenka. Lesenka is a pet name, my name for my little sister." Her face saddened.

"Ah. I see. Lesenka is Olesya. Would you mind using her full name, to avoid confusion?"

"Y-yes. Sure."

Lizzie sat down opposite of her, taking a sip from her coffee cup. A similar cup sat in front of Anasenko, steaming. She hadn't touched it yet.

"Ok," Lizzie began. "Ms. Yevgenieva, when did you and your sister arrive in the United States? Please be accurate even if your stay was illegal for some time."

"I…What does that have to do with Les—with Olesya?"

"Please just answer the question."

The woman made another fluttery gesture with her fingers, then said, "2009. April 2009. Olesya and I travelled here."

"How did you get here? Did someone take you? Escort you? Did you come by airplane? Boat?"

"We travelled…in a ship. It was not comfortable." She looked away, ashamed. Lizzie sketched a quick symbol on a piece of paper, turned it around and showed it to her.

"Do you have this brand on your shoulder?"

The girl's cornflower blue eyes widened. "You know?" she whispered.

"I know of one person who was responsible for human trafficking hundreds, perhaps thousands of girls this way. She is…no longer a threat."

Anasenko tapped the symbol with a finger. "I know this. We did not get this brand. The others…they were taken away, and when we saw them again, they were in great pain. They used a cattle brand on them."

"But you didn't get one?" Lizzie asked, intrigued.

"No. Neither me nor Olesya. I thought perhaps Lesenka was too young. But there were other girls of her age."

"Were they also blonde and beautiful?"

Anasenko's mouth twisted. "We were all beautiful. Some were blonde. We were the only ones with white hair, though."

"How were you selected?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Before you left…before they took you. Did you have to go through some kind of selective process?"

"No. We…Lesenka…I mean Olesya and I…we come from a small town. Demosk. Very small. No prospects, no work, no nothing. Half the youth dies of Croc, other half dies of alcohol before they're thirty." She stared at her coffee. "It's terrible. You wouldn't understand. There's nothing to do. Do you know boredom? In Demosk, people literally die of boredom. Everything is better than…being. In the winter, we cannot be reached and cannot leave because of the snow. Most of the buildings are empty, derelict. The town only exists because people don't have the energy or the means to go live somewhere else. No big cities around, only one town, half a day away. Our father died when we were small. We lived with my mother and her sister. My aunt is sick. We couldn't get any medicines." She shrugged. "When I was sixteen, a group of men came to Demosk. Offered us a way out. Get a job, get money. We had nothing to lose. We went with them, at least fifteen girls of our town, and they already had thirty from other towns."

"These men," Lizzie asked, "can you describe them, or would you recognize them if you saw them again?"

The girl shook her head. "They were tall men. White."

"American?"

"I don't know. I could not understand them when they talked amongst themselves. But all I spoke then was Russian. We only saw them for a couple of days, not often. They transported us in large trucks, like cattle. But we had blankets and food, and they were not cruel. Not unkind."

Lizzie nodded. "So you were brought to America. Straight here, to Baltimore?"

"I…don't think so." She shrugged again, looking helpless. "We were taken to a Russian port. I don't know where. There, we stayed for a few days. We got lots of food, hot showers every day, and we were examined by a doctor. My sister, she was very small, very fragile. She was fourteen but looked younger. The doctor gave her steel pills and the woman who took care of us gave her large portions of food—and fruits and vegetables, so many fruits! We liked it there," a wistful look entered her eyes. "The woman—we called her Mamushka—was so nice. But then we were loaded into this big box, a huge metal box, with more than twenty girls. It took so long, and it was so very dark and terrible…" she trailed off. "I can't remember much of what happened when we came to America. I was sick, I had a fever. Maybe they wouldn't brand me because I was sick—but several of the other girls had a fever as well, but were branded. I don't know." She looked up. "We came here, at last. There was this…man. He was very young and handsome. He had the most amazing smile. He said Olesya and I would work for him. Said we would be dancers. At first he was nice, but later he was…he beat us. And he made us do…things."

_Skinny. Someone picked them out for the way they looked, made sure they weren't branded, and gave them to Skinny for grooming. And he fucked it up. _ "James Rainfield?" Lizzie asked gently, and the girl cringed.

"Yes."

"He prostituted you and your sister?"

"Yes."

"Was he the one who kept you from being branded?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe. He didn't care for us, only for the money we brought in." She picked up her paper cup and took a drink. "At least we got to send some home, to mama."

"Ms. Yevgenieva, do you know what happened to Olesya?"

"I know her body was found in an alley. Beaten to death. It was on the news." Her mouth trembled. "Her face, all broken and battered, on the TV, every hour, for weeks. My sweet little sister!" She closed her eyes, and Lizzie gave her a tissue. She used it to wipe away her tears and blow her nose. "I'm sorry," she said. "It was…Lesenka was…We helped each other, you understand? Through everything, we were together, even when we were apart. And it was so cruel, so sad. Things were finally going well for us. I had found a man—he came to this club I danced in. He told me I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. He was kind to me—honest kind, not I-want-your-cunt kind." Lizzie repressed a shiver at the casual way she said it. "And one day, when he…when I had bruises, he told me he would get me away from him. From Skinny. Rainfield, he's known as Skinny. And he did. He got me away. Helped me improve my English." She smiled, and it made her so beautiful Lizzie believed a man would do anything to make her smile at him like that.

"What was the name of this man?" Lizzie asked, although she could guess.

"David Boscoe."

"And you live with him now?"

"Sometimes. I have my own place. But yes, we're together."

"Ok. And how were things looking up for Olesya?"

"She got a steady friend as well," Anasenko said, still smiling a little. "An _admirer_. He was very rich. Someone introduced her to him, and he…My sister is…was…very lovely. Like an angel. He called her his angel, this man. Gave her gifts. He was…he was a client, but he truly loved her." Another tear fell down her cheek and dripped into the remains of her coffee. "I know he was far too old for her, and that she was little more than a child, but he made her happy and I loved him for that. I heard he had to give up his career when my sister…when it turned out he'd had an affair with her." She shook her head. "He didn't know she was that young, and even if he had known, he wouldn't ever have met her if we hadn't left Demosk. She probably would've died before she was sixteen. He didn't deserve to be treated the way he was."

_He was married, sweetheart. No matter how pretty the girl, if you're planning to have a political career, you shouldn't do the wild thing with underage girls, even if they look like an angel. _Lizzie leaned forward. "Anasenko, do you know who introduced your sister to her suitor?"

The girl thought for a while and then suddenly perked up. "Yes! I remember because he had a Russian name. A funny one: Beliykot."

Lizzie wrote it down. _Could that be Blofeld? Is he Russian after all? _"Did you ever meet him?"

"I don't think so." She hesitated. "Perhaps? I met a lot of men. I can't recall a face with the name. My sister knew him; she talked about him sometimes, Mr. Beliykot. She was afraid of him, but he treated her well."

"And after your sister's death? A man approached you, asking you to take over her job."

Anasenko's eyes grew large. "How…how do you know that?"

"I just do. You had to turn him down because you were pregnant by David Boscoe. Can you remember him?"

"No. He never approached me directly. He came to Skinny. But I was living with David at the time and I was…You already said it. I was expecting Jamie then." Her pretty face darkened. "Skinny came to my house. This was before the investigations. He told me someone wanted me to take over from Lesenka. As if we were interchangeable. We resembled one another, but we were sisters, not twins. How could you even expect a man to just forget about one woman he loved and move on to another? Anyway, I was pregnant. Skinny told me to abort the child; he'd give me money. Lots of money. I turned him out of my house."

"Did you tell Boscoe about his visit?"

"No. I didn't want him to get involved. He's a good man," she added earnestly.

_Yeah, he's a prince,_ Lizzie thought sarcastically. "What about Jamie's abduction, last week?"

"How do you KNOW all these things?" Anasenko cried out.

_Because my trigger-happy partner saved him and unknowingly condemned his kidnapper to living hell, _Lizzie thought, but what she said was, "Did you see anyone that seemed familiar? Someone who could have been this Mr. Beliykot?"

"No!"

"Do you know who took Jamie?"

"Skinny! David said Skinny had taken him."

"Do you know what happened to Skinny once Boscoe brought him and Jamie back?"

"No." Her pale hair flew around her face as she vehemently shook her head. "No, I didn't want to know. All I wanted was my baby back. I don't care about Skinny, and I don't know what happened to him."

"I need to know who took him, and who tortured him."

"Tortured?" The girl froze in her seat.

"Yes," Lizzie said, slowly. "Tortured. He was skinned, Anasenko. Someone took a knife and cut him from here," she traced a line along her own collarbones, "to here, and then pulled off his skin all the way down to his hips and left him there, to hang from the ceiling."

"_Skinned_…Is he dead?" Anasenko asked, voice high and nostrils flaring. "Did he die?"

"We need to know who did it to him."

"I don't know." Something behind her eyes closed down, and for the first time since they'd started the interview, Lizzie knew she was lying.

"I think you do," she said.

"No. I don't know anything. I just wanted my boy back. David returned him to me, that's all I know."

"Anasenko, if you don't tell us what you know, we'll assume Boscoe was the one to torture Skinny."

She didn't know how it was possible, but Anasenko's expression became even more desperate and distressed than before. "But he didn't! I know he didn't!"

"We have strong reasons to believe that he did." Lizzie pushed. "He took Skinny with him during the raid. Who else would have taken him to the place where he found him, which was connected to the Lion's Den, and tortured him? Who else had such a great motif?" She leaned forward. The girl had started crying again. It ruined her beautiful face. "Unless you tell us what you know, we will arrest Boscoe."

"But he didn't do it! He had nothing to do with it! All he wanted was…was Jamie back. You…there can't be any evidence that he did it! If you didn't do anything, there's no evidence."

"If a theory is valid enough, physical proof is not required," Lizzie said. It was a lie, but she hadn't been around Ressler for fourteen months to not learn how to present it as a toneless threat. She made her voice harden. "He'll go to jail, Anasenko. You won't see him for…oh, ten years? Your son won't remember having a father. And he will leave you all by yourself, without protection."

"The boys will look out for me," Anasenko whispered, but the prospect of living without Boscoe obviously filled her with panic.

Lizzie felt terrible for hounding the poor woman like this, but she pressed on regardless. "The boys? His group of bikers, you mean?" She made a doodle in her notebook, and Anasenko cried, "They've got nothing to do with this!" She buried her face in her hands.

"What's 'this'? The raid, with its five lethal victims? Jamie's abduction? Skinny's? His being tortured? The drugs?"

"Drugs?" Anasenko whispered, appalled.

Lizzie tucked away her notebook and put her hands flat on the table. "Listen to me. I don't want to mess up your life. I don't even want to mess up Boscoe's, even though it seems he can handle that pretty well on his own. I don't want to break up your family or take your child away from you. I want to catch a criminal. And I believe the man you called…" she referred to her note, "Beliykot may be the man we know as Blofeld." Something struck her. She'd jotted the word 'funny' below the name. "Wait. You said his name was funny. Why?"

Anasenko rubbed her eyes, combed her hair out of her tear-stained face. "Because it was unusual," she said tiredly. "Russian names aren't like that."

"In what way?"

"Beliykot. It means 'white cat'."

_Blofeld. The villain's white cat._

"My sister…he said he liked word games. Puns? I didn't understand why Beliykot was a pun. I don't think I ever met him, but he didn't have white hair. Lesen—Olesya said he didn't resemble a white cat at all. But when you said that he skinned Skinny…"

_Yeah. That's a pun alright…_

"Look," Anasenko implored, "I don't know anything. I just _don't_. I just want a quiet life, no crime, no violence, no drugs. I don't know the man you're looking for. Even if my sister did, she's dead, and I'm not her. But he must have had a lot of power, and if he did kidnap my son, and use him to get to Skinny, and if David is working for him…He must be put away! And I want to help you, but I…I just don't know _how_!"

"We'll find a way," Lizzie said. "Now that you're willing. Let's look at some pictures. Maybe you'll recognize someone."


	18. Chapter 18

"Where the fuck is that container?" Boscoe had sped up from his brisk walk to a half-run, and feverishly compared the numbers painted on the containers with the one on his piece of paper. He even climbed up one to see if it was stacked on top of a container in an adjacent lot, but didn't find what he was looking for.

Stone, who was slowly turning back into Ressler, was less keyed up but was starting to worry a little bit, too. He may have another serial number, but so far, that number hadn't been found either, and they'd been out here for almost an hour trying to find it.

_What if it's not here? _he wondered. _What if this is another one of Reddington's schemes and there simply is no container? What then? _

_If this was a set-up, I am going to walk up to him and punch him in the face until he stops breathing._ The thought held enormous appeal. He no longer hated Reddington quite as much as he had a year before, but to say he cared for him was something else. His hatred had simply…changed. There were many criminals who were even more despicable, less charming, and more importantly, less guilty of saving Ressler's life and assisting him when he briefly and wilfully lost his mind and went AWOL to hunt down Tanida. Like Blofeld. He gladly put his pursuit of Red aside to hunt down this scum. Being under his protection as an informant to the FBI would not keep Reddington from being knocked on his ass if he deserved it, though, as far as Ressler was concerned. And if this was a set-up…

But it wasn't.

He stopped abruptly as he noticed the white painted numbers on the container in front of him. It was situated at the very edge of lot 5 Black. Another container was positioned on top of it, but that wouldn't hamper anyone opening its doors. "This is it."

"Did you find it?" Boscoe called. He began to scamper down.

"Yeah." He checked the number again. It wasn't the number Reddington had given him; it was the old one, the one Boscoe had shown him. But the paint was blurry here and there, as if someone had hurriedly wiped it off and repainted several of the numbers.

_I can just see Dembe doing that, just casually walking around here with a bucket of whitewash and a bottle of thinner, preparing for our entry. _The paint was still wet, and runny in places. Must've been a haste job. Despite himself, he was impressed. He didn't know how he could have convinced Boscoe things were still legit if he'd claimed the number he had was faulty and Stone just happened to know the correct one.

Boscoe, once he'd climbed down and joined Ressler in front of the container, never noticed the paint had been tampered with—and why should he? He regarded the container with a satisfied smile.

"There you are." He turned to Ressler. "Are you ready to meet your riches, man? It may not look like cocaine at first glance, but I can assure you that you're only one small chemical action away from the biggest haul in decades."

Ressler smiled. "Of course." He wondered what he would find. Toys? Drugs were often hidden in toys, or they were soaked in a liquid version of it. Or furniture? He thought he'd seen a movers logo on one of the trucks at the gate. For some reason his pulse was racing, the beat of it resonating in his ribs, as if his heart was physically throwing itself against them, and throbbing in his temples.

He pulled the pin out of the lock and swung open one of the doors—and staggered back, hit by the terrible smell inside. An equally horrible sound started up as well, some high-pitched wailing. "What the fuck…?" He yanked open the other door as well.

Boscoe, echoing his expletives, shone his torch inside. "What the hell?! That's not…That's not our load! That's kids! We got the wrong shipment!"

Inside, more than fifty children cowered, crying, in the flash-lit darkness. All of them were small; Ressler didn't think any of them were over ten. Some were black, some Asian, a few Caucasian; all were dirty and miserable. Several had started to howl, terrified, when he'd opened the door, but worse were the ones who were silent, staring out with large, empty eyes. A few hadn't moved and lay crumpled on the filthy blankets on the ground, either asleep, catatonic or dead. A row of buckets in the back of the container had functioned as improvised latrines; two had fallen over and dumped their contents over the floor, soaking up the rags the unconscious children were lying on.

He'd seen the shipment of Adriana Campo. All those teenage girls. But this was worse, oh, so much worse. These were _children_. _Babies_. And some of them were _dead_.

"No," Ressler rumbled, almost inaudible with rage. _Oh, I get it. I get it now. It was a switch. There were two containers, and he had them switched. Oh, God, Blofeld, Reddington, you FUCKER. _"No, we didn't. We didn't!" He rounded up on the other man and gave him such an upper-cut it lifted Boscoe five inches from the ground before slamming him into the wall of the container with a loud, resounding bang. The children inside screamed, adding to Ressler's rage and making him see everything through an odd, distorting red haze. His head was pounding.

"You motherfucking _cunt_! You didn't know about this? Huh, you want to tell me you didn't KNOW?"

"No! NO!" Boscoe tried to fend him off, but he really didn't stand a chance, not with Ressler being this mad. "No, fuck, get off of me, I didn't know! I thought we were getting dope, Stone, I swear!"

"I don't deal in children," Ressler snarled into his face. The criminal persona he'd built up warred with his own, making him feel strange and schizophrenic, but in the end it didn't really matter which one won. That one gruesome picture of those kids seemed to have imprinted itself on his mind and it reappeared every time he blinked his eyes. "I'll see you hang for this. No, fuck that," He got out his Glock and pressed the barrel against Boscoe's forehead, "I'm gonna take care of that myself, right now."

Boscoe, tough as nails, gulped in panic and raised his voice in fear as he turned off the safety. "No! No, I didn't know! Christ, Stone, I didn't know!"

"Then whose shipment is this?"

"I don't…"

"Whose is it, because I swear to god, I'll put a bullet through your fucking skull unless you tell me."

"I can't…"

Ressler shot him in the leg. It was almost becoming a habit. A Chinese henchman or a man he'd spent the last week befriending and playing cards with—what was the difference? At least this was a small calibre gun, not a shotgun or a SIG. "WHO IS IT?"

The other man shrieked but did not answer.

Ressler shot him through the other leg, slapped him in the face and dug the gun barrel into the soft flesh beneath his chin, forcing his head up. "Who IS it, Boscoe?" he hissed. "Whose shipment is this? Shut up, shut your bawling! I can keep this up until my gun's empty."

"He'll kill me," Boscoe pleaded.

"Yes, but will he torture you? Hah. Of course he will. He tortured Skinny, too, didn't he? But he ain't here now, and I am. A name. Give me a name, or I'm shooting your fingers off one by one and then I'll start with the rest of you. I'll go on until there's nothing left of you but a bleeding _stump_." He grabbed the man by the throat and ground the barrel down on his thumb. "One. Two. Thr—"

"El Atél!" Boscoe howled. "I know him as El Atél. That's all I know, man, that's all I know!"

"How did you contact him?"

"I didn't. He'd…he'd call me."

"Phone?"

"In my p-pocket."

"Give it to me." In the distance, two-toned sirens sent their song into the air. At the same time, he became aware of a small red dot of light on the wall of the container a little to the right of him. _Snipers are here. SWAT's here. _The red haze receded, and he became aware that he was shaking. Boscoe lay in a sobbing heap against the container, losing alarming quantities of blood through the holes in his thighs. With a muttered curse, Ressler whipped off his belt and laid a tourniquet, removing and using the other man's belt for his other leg. Boscoe had a semi-automatic pocket pistol thrust into the waistband of his pants; Ressler took it and shoved it into his coat pocket. He could hear fast and stealthy footsteps running behind and over the surrounding containers.

"Who are you, man?" Boscoe asked pitifully. He wasn't so observant. His pupils were still huge—with cocaine use and shock both, Ressler gathered. "What the hell's happening?"

_Christ Boscoe, I wish I knew. _He was still shaking. "I'm through with this."

A dirty, dark little face with impossibly large eyes peeked out of the container. A boy or a girl, he couldn't even be sure. Maybe seven years old, feet bare, wearing nothing but a stained oversized T-shirt. When it saw him, the face contorted in fear and the child shot back inside.

He should probably go inside and get the children out, or talk to them, or anything.

He found himself utterly unable to look into the container again.

He should secure Boscoe somehow, but he wasn't going anywhere, and Ressler desperately needed to get away from this place and notify Cooper.

He raised his right arm and called out, "Take him! And someone call an ambulance."

And then he walked, almost fled away from the place, head reeling and hands locked in trembling fists while the SWAT team surrounded Boscoe, someone cursed and help services were being notified.

In the maze of containers it was easy to disappear, but Ressler had only taken a few steps into the shadows before an excruciating lance of pain shot through his chest, causing him to fall to his knees and press his hands against his ribs. His heart was thudding so fast and loud he could hear it echo from the surfaces around him.

_Oh god, oh Christ, please stop it, I have to call in, I have to get out, I have to stop this._

He scrabbled for his phone, first got Boscoe's and reached for his own, but another spasm made him bend double again, gasping. This time the pain radiated all the way to his stomach. _Help me, I'm having a heart attack, I'm dying! _a small voice inside his head gibbered in panic, but he knew it was just stress and reaction and so cardiac problems wasn't something he was concerned about. He had the heart of an ox. What did concern him was the intensity of it and his total inability to shrug it off. He vaguely wondered if this would be the first time a suspect couldn't be apprehended quickly enough because the agent providing the vital information couldn't stop freaking out long enough to call in, but a cool voice from the shadows settled his mind.

"No need to use that phone, I'm right here, Agent Ressler." Reddington appeared in the beam of a stray streetlight, complete with hat, like the most clichéd gumshoe ever.

Ressler would have laughed at it if his stomach hadn't made him want to die. He took a deep breath, forced himself to work through the pain, moistened his lips and rasped, "El Atél."

"What?"

The paint-covered metal of the container was cold beneath his hand as he used it for support while he pushed himself to his feet. "El Atél. That's the man who's responsible for this shipment, according to Boscoe. El Atél."

"El Atél …" It clearly failed to ring any bells. "Are you sure?"

Ressler gritted his teeth against another wave of nausea. His head was killing him. "Yes, I'm sure." He looked up as Reddington held something out to him: a small bottle of mineral water.

"Drink it. Slowly. I think you're having some sort of panic attack. It'll settle your stomach."

He took a sip and promptly retched, but the next swallow stayed inside.

"El Atél you say…The name does sound familiar, but I can't place it. Mexican perhaps?"

"Maybe Boscoe's phone can help. He said…he said El Atél contacted him, never the other way around. He should've been called this evening, maybe you can trace it. May turn out to be nothing, but…"

"I'm sure it'll be most useful." Reddington accepted the phone with a gracious nod and tucked it away. "Are you…?"

"You knew." The strange red haze was creeping back over his vision. The pain in his chest and stomach faded to a burning ball of rage. "You knew this wouldn't be a drug shipment; you knew it would be children."

"Yes," Red said simply.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because knowing what was in this container would make it harder for you to befriend Boscoe. You yourself keep telling me how bad you are at make-believe, so I…"

"Did he know? Huh? Boscoe, did he know about this?"

"What do you think?"

"Answer the FUCKING question, Reddington!"

Reddington pressed his lips together in an expression that was similar to an eye-roll. "No, Donald, I very much doubt that Davey Boscoe knew anything about this particular shipment. He's innocent in that regard."

"I SHOT him!"

"Yes. That seems to be your preferred method of interrogation," Red deadpanned, but Ressler didn't even hear him through the blood pounding in his temples.

"You could have stopped this."

"I doubt it."

"I know how this works," Ressler spat. "They pick up a boat of fugitives, separate the children from the parents, set the parents adrift or kill them and throw them overboard…either that or they raid a village. It takes time to collect so many children, and if you knew about this shipment…"

"The fact that I knew about it doesn't mean I could do anything to stop it," Reddington said, still in that maddeningly reasonable voice. "Or did you think I only decided to bring down that Campo woman last year because I felt like it? Cartels like these are well-organized and their leaders are notoriously hard to stop. Besides, if I'd interfered, we now wouldn't have this 'El Atél' figure, would we? Relax. The children are safe. Child services will be here in a couple of minutes, and…"

"And then WHAT?" Ressler snarled. He slammed his palm against the container next to him, creating a satisfyingly loud bang. "You know what happens to these kids!"

"They'll be returned to their…"

"Their WHAT? Their families? Don't make me laugh. They were wiped out, and you know it! They were running to get somewhere safe, so there's no home to come back to. These kids've got nowhere to go, and so they'll go nowhere!" Nowhere but the streets or the ghettos. Too old to fit in, too young to make do on their own. In another ten years, he'd probably meet half of them in either the morgue or on the other side of his gun.

Reddington regarded him with his head tilted a little to the right. "Why are you so angry about this? These children may end up in a refugee centre or with foster parents, but at least we've spared them a life in the sex industry. Or worse." He took a step forward. "You did a good job, Donald. Their fate was sealed and you changed it, and now we have the means to stop this man for once and for all. All in all a good result for one week's work."

"You want to know why I'm _angry_?" Ressler asked incredulously. He was starting to tremble again. "You manipulated me to befriend some…some helpless schmuck to uncover a drug operation and it turned out to be child trafficking, which you knew about from the start, but which you didn't seem fit to inform me about, and you're surprised I'm ANGRY about it, you sick son of a bitch?"

"I already told you why I didn't…"

"And you think that makes it _alright_? You think you can just use me like that, and that because the end justifies the means and you once presented me with a head in a box I'll just nod my head like a good little servant and ask you for more? You fucking bastard, what the hell gives you the right to…"

"Agent Ressler," Reddington interrupted him coolly, "You can drop the other persona. You're no longer Aaron Stone, and you're overstepping."

"Fuck you!" He grabbed Reddington by the collar, feeling a savage joy at the surprised and slightly alarmed look on his face, threw him against the container and was about to smash his nose into his brain when two hands closed around his shoulders and yanked him off.

Dembe. Of course it was Dembe. Black fucker followed Reddington like a shadow. Ressler stumbled back, spine curved, hands balled to fists, ready to take Dembe down as well.

"Don't," Dembe said calmly, stepping around him to stand in front of his employer. He had a smudge of white paint on one side of his nose. "Just…don't."

"Get out…of my way."

"You don't want to do this."

_Oh hell yes, I do. I want to mess him up like I did Boscoe. _His stomach cramped again, but he ignored it and launched himself at Reddington. Red didn't move, but Dembe did, with a swift, straight punch into Ressler's gut. He dropped to his knees—again, his jeans must be getting thin on the knees—and gagged, whooping for breath, ribs screaming.

"Don't hurt him," Reddington said. "He's just going haywire."

With an inarticulate scream Ressler threw himself at the first target that presented itself to him—his goal Reddington, but Dembe would be fine as well, and he got two good hits in before Reddington sucker punched him in the chin and sent him flying into a container, stars exploding in front of his eyes. He may have blacked out for a few seconds, because when he came to he was lying in a heap against the wall.

"Ok," Reddington's voice said, and he felt hands dragging him to his feet—hands that supported him as much as they restrained him. "Are you quite done? Listen to me—listen to me! You did _good_. I didn't give you all the information I had to protect you and increase the chances of this operation working out; not to lie to you, but to _protect_ you. I'm sorry you see this as betrayal but it was necessary."

Ressler growled. He wasn't aware of it, but Reddington obviously heard it and shook him, finally growing impatient. "Let it _go_, Don. Go home. Get a good nights' sleep. I'll get back to you when I've found out who El Atél is, and how we can bring him down."

"Don't count on me," Ressler hissed. He wiped his mouth, stared blindly at the blood on his fingers. He couldn't exactly pinpoint the source of this boiling fury but not much cared to find out either; all he wanted to do was plant his fist into the other man's face.

Reddington took a few steps away from him, his hands open and raised. Dembe, a few feet behind him, was nursing a bleeding lip and regarded Ressler warily, as if he were a mad dog.

Then Red's phone buzzed; he took it out of his pocket, regarded the display and said, "I am terribly sorry, Donald, but I must answer this."

Ressler sagged against the container, rage still burning hot in his belly, heating his bruised muscles.

"Go _home_," Reddington repeated. "Sleep it off." He turned away and answered his goddamned phone.

_Sleep WHAT off, asshole?_ And maybe he'd have tried for Reddington's throat again if another voice hadn't introduced itself. A woman's voice.

"Ressler? Are you here?"

Keen.

Annoyance and hate and rage and an all-overpowering sense of shame all surged up in him, and he flung himself away from Reddington and smashed his fist into the solid steel of the container, because if he couldn't hit him, at least he could hit _something_.

Lizzie came running to the resounding boom it made, but he shouldered her aside and stomped off, seething.

He hadn't walked fifty yards before someone called his name and grabbed his shoulder and he decked him in reaction—the man caught his fist in his hand, which was probably fortunate, as Cooper could likely take him and would not look favourable on his agent if said agent gave him a bloody nose. "Agent Ressler! Get a hold of yourself."

_Fuck you_. He didn't say it; apparently he wasn't quite ready to commit career suicide yet, but he felt his lip curl and yanked his arm back. Cooper let him. He gave him a little more space, but his voice was tight when he said, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you out of your mind? Why did you shoot Boscoe? And what happened to the drug shipment?"

_It magically transformed into a box with dead children._ "Ask Reddington," Ressler snarled. He tried to calm down, but now matter what he did, he just couldn't. He was still seeing red, his vision pulsing with the beat of his heart. On impulse, he took both his own gun and Boscoe's and shoved them at his superior, who juggled them a moment in surprise before putting them into his own pockets. "Take these. That one's Boscoe's; that one's Aaron's. I shouldn't have them."

"Ressler. Are you under the influence of something?"

"No," he snapped, but he wasn't entirely certain he wasn't, even if he hadn't taken anything but painkillers for the last 24 hours. He wiped at his mouth again. Reddington must have knocked his teeth through his lip with his hit. "What about Anasenko, did she say anything useful?"

"Not so much." Cooper said. His raspy voice was calm as ever, but he was regarding Ressler with an apprehension that made him want to punch him in the eye. He forced himself to relax his hands. His right hand sent a spike of pain all the way to his elbow, but he forgot about it immediately. "She did, more or less, confirm that Blofeld was the one to select her sister for the congressman, and that he probably was the one to torture Rainfield."

"We knew all that," Ressler gritted out. Why didn't the son of a bitch come to the point?

"He called himself by a Russian name that translates as 'White cat'."

"But can she point him out to us?"

"She says she can't," Cooper said. "She says she never met him in person."

"She's lying. Where is she, at the precinct? Let me talk to her."

"No," Cooper said.

Ressler's spine bent again as he unconsciously hunched his shoulders. "What do you mean, no? We need answers!"

Cooper was unfazed. He stood half a head taller than Ressler, and was looking down on him with perfect control, his features calm, benevolent and hard as rock. "And we'll get them. For now, our work is done here."  
"DONE?" Ressler exploded. "What do you mean, done? Do we have Blofeld? No! What happened to the drug shipment, huh? Where did that container end up? 'Cause I can tell you that Boscoe was as surprised as I was, and it sure as hell isn't here! Instead, there's a small village's worth of half-starved babies in that box, and we're _done_?"

"_You_ most certainly are," Cooper said dryly.

"I need to talk to Anasenko."

"No, agent Ressler," Cooper repeated, and this time he made sure he was in Ressler's personal space, so he had to tilt his head to look him in the face—which made him furious all over again—and said, "You need to leave this crime scene. Go _home_. Get some sleep, you look like you need it."

"We might need Aaron Stone to…"

"Aaron Stone just shot a non-resisting man through both legs, in direct view of several officers _and_ children, and threatened to execute him. I doubt we'll need him again anytime soon." He put both hands on Ressler's shoulders, deliberately invasive, gave him a short, hard shake and repeated, "Go home. We'll take care of things here. You're bleeding. I will have you escorted if you refuse. You would be refusing a direct order, by the way," he added seriously, "and you can't afford to do so. Not after tonight. Go home. Lose Aaron Stone, get yourself cleaned up. And don't come within half a mile of Anasenko Yevgenieva, or I'll have you arrested and put into a cab with a protective detail of five in the same car. Do I make myself clear?"

_But the trail!_ Ressler wanted to scream. _I can't leave now! I need to follow this up now, find this El Atél and kill him. I need to…I need to…_

"Ressler. Please."

Ressler shot him a look of pure, undiluted hatred, turned on his heel and stalked off.

"What was that about?" Lizzie followed Ressler's figure with her eyes but showed no intention to go after him. "Is he alright?"

Red held up a finger to her in a 'one moment, please' gesture, turned away from her and said, "Emilio. Tell me you have good news."

"I have found her," Emilio replied. He was so close by Red could hear the same background noise as was filtering through the telephone connection roughly a hundred feet away. "She is dehydrated and afraid, and doesn't want to be separated from the other children, but considering the circumstances she is doing fine."

Red permitted himself a momentary closing of eyes in relief.

"Let her go with the other children," he said, softly, so Lizzie wouldn't hear him. Luckily, she was conversing with Dembe and his bleeding lip. "She needs care and comfort. Can you bring her to me later tonight?"

"Tonight will be difficult," Emilio said. "I'd either have to whisk her away right now, which is kind of difficult with the FBI keeping an eye on everything, or tomorrow. Tomorrow is better. I can smuggle her out when she's been examined. I'll have access to her file, then, too; I can delete it. You do guarantee my safety—I have your word, don't I?"

"You know you do. Call me when you're ready to leave tomorrow."

He turned back to Lizzie and straightened his lapels. "Lizzie. What an eventful night."

She regarded him with that old wariness. "Ye-es," she said slowly. "Very. Human trafficking instead of drugs. What's wrong with Ressler?"

Red shrugged. _I'd say drug-addled personality disorder, but who am I to distinguish a mental disorder from simple anger? _"He seems a little…confused at the moment. Perhaps you should catch up with him."

She raised an eyebrow. "When he's holding his shoulders like that? No thank you, I don't fancy getting punched in the face. Incidentally, is that what happened to Dembe? He tried to punch you?" He thought she sounded just a little too understanding for comfort. Then she shook her head. "Never mind that. Did it work? Did he get the information you were looking for?"

"Maybe, I'd need to pull some strings, see what pops up. What about Anasenko?"

"Interesting, but no breakthrough. She knew him as 'Beliykot', which means…"

"White cat," Red said thoughtfully.

Lizzie's other eyebrow joined the first. Had she forgotten he spoke Russian? She gave a small nod. "Yes. Apparently, Blofeld is a sucker for puns. I'd best head over there," she pointed with her chin, indicating the container, now surrounded by cars and ambulances. "See what's going on. With Ressler playing hooky, the SWAT team can probably use some assistance."

Reddington winced inwardly. He'd seen his share of unpleasantness, but a container with starving, abused and dead children was one of the most unpleasant there was, and exposing Lizzie to that seemed neither wise nor necessary, not now he had the chance to keep her from seeing it firsthand at all. Also, the less people saw of Emilio and little Shukran, the better.

"Actually, I could use your help," he said casually, and gave her Boscoe's phone. He'd already photographed the list of calls made to and from the phone with his own cell, and giving it up for further research probably wouldn't hamper his own investigations. "If you could take this to Aram to have it analysed, I'd have my hands free for other things." Naïve as she was, she didn't see through him.

"Sure, I'll get it to him straight away. Maybe see if I can get to talk to this Boscoe, afterwards."

She turned to go, but he stopped her with a hand on the shoulder. "Perhaps you might check up on Agent Ressler, when you're done? He was a little…"

"Pissed off and ready to rip someone's head off, and somewhat unlike his usual self?" she finished his sentence with enough cutting sarcasm to almost make him feel guilty. "Yes, I did wonder what you'd done to him to make him act that way." She raised her chin as to be able to look down her nose at him. "Or maybe that's the drugs, fucking him up."

The most notable part of this conversation, Reddington thought, was that she appeared to be concerned about Ressler and seemed to know how he was feeling. Which indicated that their relationship had changed from professionally neutral to either friendly or even personally friendly.

_Interesting. Now when did that happen? How friendly are they, then? Mutual coffee-break friendly? Lonely-man-takes-lonely-girl-out-for-dinner friendly? Or is this purely work-related? Surely they're not sleeping with each other?_

"I think I'll give him a few hours to calm down," she continued, unaware of his appraisal. "I think I know where to find him, later." She waved the phone and started walking back to her car, away from the red-blue lights. "I'll get you the results the moment we have them."

"Thank you, Lizzie." He gestured at Dembe. "Let's go." While walking, he typed in another number on his cell phone. It was answered immediately.

"Did you find her?" Sheikh Abdul al'Khal asked breathlessly. "Have you found my daughter?"

"Yes," Red confirmed.

"Is she…alive? Is she well?"

"I haven't laid eyes on her yet, but my contact says she's doing fine, circumstances permitting. She will be delivered to me in the morning, after she's been bathed, fed, and cared for."

"I am coming to America," Abdul said.

"No," Red said firmly. "Don't make yourself a target now that your daughter is safe. I will take her to you as soon as I can. In the meantime, you could take your mind off of things and do me an immense favour by tracing a payment made to a man called Mahammad Ah'Nadal through the Arabic Gold Bank."

"Of course," Abdul said. "Whatever you want. Is this related to punishing the man who took Shukran?"

"No," Red said, honest for a change. "But I have a lead on that as well. Here. Let me give you the information I have on Ah'Nadal." He stated the day the payment had been made, any known aliases Ah'Nadal might have used, and in which city he had withdrawn the money. He finished with, "I'll get back to you the moment I have Shukran in my possession."

"Thank you, my friend. And consider it done. _Wa `alaykumu s-salāmu wa rahmatu l-lāhi wa barakātuh._"

"_Assalamu alaikum,_" Red replied, hung up and followed Dembe to his car.

Ressler reached the Dyna without meeting anyone, which was just as well, the way he was feeling. He was aware of eyes on his back—Cooper hadn't been lying about having him escorted from the scene if he didn't go willingly. It took him three times to try and fish the keys out of his pocket before he noticed that his right hand was no longer functional; when he looked at it, he found that his fingers were beginning to swell and that he had split the skin across his knuckles cleanly in two. Seeing it brought it to his attention, and he actually yelped when he laid eyes on it.

"Jesus Christ!" And yet he had to control himself not to slam his bleeding fist into the Harley's saddle. Instead he gave it a vicious kick before taking out the keys with his left hand. He didn't even try to contact Liz so he could pick up his stuff from Nicky's flat but drove all the way to Washington, all the way home, miraculously failing to run anyone over or even cause an accident, and kicked his front door when he again forgot his right hand couldn't handle keys or even fit into his pocket. It was strange; that hand hurt, and it hurt a _lot_, and he thought he might have broken his middle finger, but the moment he was distracted he no longer felt any pain.

After locking the door behind him he went straight for the shower. He didn't think he'd ever felt so filthy before, and that included after midnight training sessions in the mud. Catching a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror he started—at first, Aaron Stone had felt fake, but now he hardly recognized himself behind the face staring back at him. He'd seen the same face this morning when he'd recalled he didn't have to shave, but that had simply been his own face with stubble; now it appeared to be someone else's, and it was a face he really didn't care for. _It's the eyes. There's something wrong with the eyes._

If he hadn't seen it in the reflection and felt the sting as he balled his hand, he wouldn't have noticed raising his own fist to smash the mirror to pieces.

"Quit it!" he snapped at his reflection, and forced himself to drop his arm to his side. Aaron Stone was no longer required; it was high time he retired. Undressing was difficult with only one working hand: Stone had worn jeans with a belt and DMs without zippers. The belt may be gone—_Is he still alive? Is Boscoe alive after what I did to him? Did I really do that, knowing what that feels like? Oh yes I did—_butthe boots alone took him five minutes, and he threw the last one against the wall in a fit of anger when he finally ripped it off. The bandages Liz had wound around his torso that morning gave him grief as well, but he made short work of them with a pair of scissors. Eventually he made it into the shower stall and turned it on so hot he almost burned the skin off his body. For a very long time he simply stood beneath the spray, catching it in his mouth and letting it wash the other persona off his face. The heat stung on his lower lip and his chin, and apparently he'd reopened the wound on his head _again_, because there was a sudden swirl of red in the water when he rubbed his neck. By the time he clumsily reached for the shower gel, the water was running cooler, and when he emerged, smooth of jaw and clean of skin, there were no clouds of steam but just him, shivering and red, his hand dripping pink water.

The irrepressible rage seemed to have been washed away and whirled down into the sink, but he could still feel it bubble and froth beneath the surface. Putting on boxers, he first took the time to treat and bandage his knuckles before dressing further, if only to keep from bleeding all over his nice, cosy, empty house. The iodine stung like a bitch, but he clamped down on the fury rising in his gut and managed to not throw the little plastic bottle through the room.

_You know, I think that finger's definitely broken. Maybe you should go to the hospital. _

_No. Not today, not now. _Once he'd covered it all up with some nice white bandages, it looked clean enough. His head had stopped bleeding, too. Combing his hair seemed like a vain and painful exercise, but the scent of his gel, and the way it made him look and feel more like himself was soothing, even if it stung like hell. He took a vicodin left over from his latest shot wound, dressed in slacks and a turtleneck sweater that covered his arms to the wrist, hiding the henna tattoo that had only faded a little after all his scrubbing…and ground to a halt.

The house was so quiet. All the time spent as Aaron Stone, he'd wished he could go back here, but now he was here all it was, was empty. Suddenly, he missed Audrey so badly it hurt. He missed the way she laughed, and also how she could laugh at _him_, at his seriousness and his obsessiveness. Audrey would've made him feel like himself just like that, with nothing more than a smile.

He stood in the middle of the living room, listening to the ticking of his two clocks, and it seemed as if the house was a square mile of loneliness. Ressler closed his eyes with a moan of desperation, put on shoes, grabbed his coat and went to the bar two streets away.

And that was where Lizzie found him two hours later, when she arrived in Washington herself.

She'd called him, several times: twice in Baltimore, when she waited for the local techie to go over Boscoe's phone so she could take it with her when she drove back; then again on the road, and once more when she drove into the city proper.

He never picked up.

Lizzie first checked the office, not really expecting to find him there, but more to leave Boscoe's cell phone for Aram. The local techie in Baltimore had a good reputation, but he wasn't Aram, so she left the phone in his pigeon hole. Cooper was still in Baltimore, and probably wouldn't get back until early afternoon the next day. Before getting into her rental car, Liz had told Cooper that Ressler would probably call in later, but that if he didn't, he shouldn't worry, because he'd probably gone home to get some much-needed sleep after this hectic couple of days. Cooper had been understanding, perhaps too understanding; he rarely seemed to care about people's personal problems. He'd given her the report on Boscoe.

"You're sure Agent Ressler is doing fine?" he'd asked, as she browsed the information and winced at the damage. "Because if he isn't, I could do without another Tanida disaster."

"Positive, sir," she'd said. "I ran into him. He was just…exhausted."

"Exhausted," Cooper had repeated, and there was so much irony in his tone he didn't even need to arch an eyebrow. She wondered if he'd 'run into' Ressler as well, himself.

"Maybe I'll go and check on him," she'd volunteered, evading his searching eyes.

"Maybe you should, Agent Keen. And then go home; I'm expecting you at the Post Office tomorrow bright and early. We haven't caught El Atél yet; there's much to be done." Nothing that required Liz Keen or Donald Ressler, though. Aaron and Nicky had just been decommissioned.

So she'd driven home, with her trolley and Ressler's duffel bag in the back, verified that he wasn't at the office and then driven past his apartment, but it was dark and nobody answered the door when she rang the doorbell. _One other place I know where to look for him, then. _She'd parked her car around the corner and walked the last hundred yards to the bar. Before she went in she gazed up and read the name of the bar: St. Vincent, in hand-painted white letters.

_I_ _wonder what kind of saint he was_. Most of the saints weren't exactly people you named your bar after, she thought. They all made for singularly depressing signboards, apart perhaps from Valentine. The St. Vincent bar did not have a sign at all.

Inside, it was a lot more crowded than it had been when they'd been here in their pursuit of drunkenness, but then they'd arrived earlier, and once they'd got started they hadn't really paid attention to any other clients. The same when they'd come here to remember Meera. Despite the place's business, she easily detected Ressler, both because he'd claimed the same place near the wall at the bar as the previous times she'd been here, and because he was projecting an invisible but powerful _somebody else's problem _field, or rather an _approach me and lose your front teeth _field. Which, she thought as she plunked down on the empty stool next to him, was quite a feat when you were barely conscious. It did not escape her attention that his hair was swept back from his forehead in the usual way. Which really was too bad; she thought the more tousled look had suited him.

She raised her hand to the bartender, noticing it was the same sexy motherly woman with the tarry voice, and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. When she got it, she glanced to the side and found a pair of blue, bloodshot eyes trained on her face.

"Hey," she said. "Cooper is wondering why you won't pick up your phone." Actually, she doubted Cooper had even tried to call him, but invoking authority would make her seem less of a worrywart.

"It's twelve-thirty," he said, articulating very carefully, and lifted his head from his arms with the effort of a boxer after eight hard rounds in the ring. She noticed he'd shaved off the short beard that had been covering his jaws for the last few days. "Surely the man's got other things to do than wait for my call. After all, he sent me away, what's he want, a babyphone?"

_Ah. So Cooper did meet him before he left. _"I think he's just nervous because we've got a suspect in custody with a concussion and two shot legs."

"Huh." He searched for and found his half empty glass, drained it and blinked up at her. "What're you doin' here, Keen?"

She took a sip. "Picking you up and taking you home. Like a pizza or a virgin girl, your choice."

"What if I don't want to go home?"

She scoffed. "Please. You're in no condition to argue."

"I weigh at least twice as much as you do. I seriously doubt you could carry me."

"There's always taxis, you know. But seriously, pick up your phone the next time, ok? Cooper's afraid of another Tanida crisis." He echoed her snort. "And how long have you been here, drinking?"

He rubbed his chin, winced. "Hour or two. I think. Forgot my watch."

Only now she noticed the red scrape on his chin and the puffy bruise underneath it. It filled the cleft in his chin. "What happened to your face? Jesus, what's happened to your _hand_?"

"My hand? Oh." He studied the swollen and discoloured appendage with distant interest. "Broke it, I think."

"On Dembe?"

"Huh. No. On the container, probably. I can't rightly recall."

"Why? What possessed you to hit something so hard you broke…is it really broken? Have you been to the hospital?"

He shrugged and ordered another drink by lifting his finger. "I was…kind of angry. I'll have it checked out tomorrow."

She put her hand on his shoulder. "Don, you really should…"

"Take your hand off of me. Now."

Startled, she pulled away from him. Then she frowned and huddled closer, not touching him but definitely getting into his face. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn't you return my call? I vouched for you, I said you were tired and that you were fine. Are you?"

"Hell no." He took a large swallow from his new glass, wincing as the alcohol hit his split lip. "I mean, yeah, sure."

"Well _that's_ convincing."

"Christ, Keen, what do you want from me? I had a lousy evening."

"Why? You saved a shipload of children, all of whom are now being taken care of and bundled up in bed. How's that a lousy evening?"

He blinked at her, and after a moment she realized it was with incredibility. "How about: it's kind of a shock to expect a container filled with neat packages of cocaine and getting a bundle of raped and starving joy instead?"

"But…"

"Did you see them?" he interrupted her. "Did you see those kids?"

"No, I had to take Boscoe's cell to the station."

"Good. Nothing to be gained seeing that." He finished his drink and called for another. He was having whiskey, Lizzie noticed, but he almost drank it like his vodka and tequila shots. She wondered how many he'd had already. "I'd've left that scene and _fucking_ Reddington in it even if Cooper hadn't sent me off. You want to know why? Because if I'd stayed, I'd have put a bullet in his head, that's why. I am so through with being used by that…that sick, manipulative…fucking _waste_ of a hat and trench coat—yes, laugh! Laugh at it, see if I care. Do you remember, a couple of months ago, how you were moping and moaning, "Oh, Reddington lied to me! He ruined my life!"" Hearing Ressler do a high-pitched impression of her voice made Lizzie hide a smile, no matter how hurtful he was trying to be. She could tell none of his anger was directed at her, really. What disturbed her more was how much of it seemed to be directed at himself. "Well he made me live someone _else's_ life, and that someone…that someone was…Being him…Do you know what it's like to look into the mirror and not recognize your own face? Can you even imagine how utterly depersonalizing that is?"

"No," she said calmly. "I can't. And I think that if you hadn't been on drugs, you wouldn't, either."

His eyes widened, and she knew she had handed him something he'd been desperately searching for, something that hadn't occurred to him. An explanation.

"Could it…do you think that's it? That this…" He gestured at his own head, "that all this is just an after-effect of doing…substances? I mean, it can take this long to wear off?"

"You talk like a regular meth head, Ressler," she said—which might not be the correct way to speak to someone on the verge of a mental breakdown, but she didn't think he'd respond as well to pampering at the moment. "Why d'you think addicts experience five times as many psychoses as people not taking drugs?"

He stared at her, and for someone with such expressionless features, he had that deer-in-the-headlights truly perfected. She thought she'd imagined it, the last time she saw it. "Psychosis?"

She inwardly scolded herself. "Congratulations, you've just avoided an existential crisis. Listen, Don." Gingerly, she placed her hand on his shoulder again, and this time he didn't shrug her off. "I don't know what it's like in your head at the moment, but it's late, you look like crap, you've had way too much to drink and I, for me, am really tired, so can we please go home?"

For one moment she was afraid he was going to refuse, just for the sake of being difficult, but then he nodded, deflated, and painfully dragged himself to his feet. Lizzie called the woman over to pay, but she just smiled and shook her head, and Lizzie assumed he'd paid in advance.

She didn't hold Ressler's arm this time, at least not at first. He kept bumping into her, though, so after a while she put her arm around his waist to steady him.

"You really should stop hitting the bottle whenever you're feeling low," she admonished. "You're getting far too good at getting drunk. Better be careful it doesn't become a habit."

He laughed, or at least made a sound that reminded her of laughter. "I didn't set out to get wasted. It just happened. It's not that bad, really; I'm just dizzy. I hadn't been there in ages. Not since Meera…" he stopped. "Why are you here, really?"

Lizzie pulled him into motion again. "I'm here to get you home and save your job. Possibly your sanity. Mainly I'm here for my own peace of mind. Oh come on, it's cold and it's late. I'll leave if you don't want me here, but at least let me drop you off, ok?"

He nodded, and listed again. She couldn't recall him ever losing that much control before. Then again, she'd been drunk as well, those previous times, and she probably hadn't been all that steady either. Or maybe…

"Don? When you were duking it out with Red, did you hit your head again?"

He nodded thoughtfully. "That's entirely possible."

She made a mental note to check his pupils when they got to his house. First she got to witness him try to get his keys out of his pockets with his busted hand and stamp his foot in frustration, so she reached into his other pocket—where she figured he had put the key because he must have locked up with his left hand—and opened the door for him. Once inside, he more or less ignored her and went straight to his bedroom, where he sat down and fought a quiet battle with the laces of his leather sneakers.

_If I had hurt my hand, I wouldn't have worn shoes with laces, _Lizzie thought, but now that she thought of it, she didn't think he had any shoes without laces. "Hey," she said, turning on the light and placing herself in front of him, forcing him to look up. "Are you ok? Do you want me to stay, or do you want to be alone?"

His eyes narrowed against the light, but his pupils were the same size. He dropped his gaze and sighed. "You can stay. If you like. It's late."

"If you want, I can sleep in the other room."

He snorted. "Don't be absurd." He reached into his neck to pull his sweater off in that strange way all men seemed to do, cursed and said, "help me."

"You've come a long way since you almost bit my head off for trying to help you with your crutches last year," Lizzie quipped. She divested him of his sweater and the shirt beneath it, wincing at the black garrotte mark surfacing from the turtleneck. And at the fresh bruises on his back and the colour explosion on his chest. And at the even bigger split knot on the back of his skull. _Dear god, but he's a mess. He's been a mess most of this week, but this is insane. _Ressler didn't respond well to coddling, though, so she only said, "Get up." unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down so he could step out of them without using his hands or bending his torso, and turned away from him to start undressing herself.

He nodded in thanks and disappeared into the bathroom.

Heaving a sigh, Lizzie walked to the spare bedroom, found herself a clean T-shirt to sleep in, and waited until he was done so she could go brush her teeth, take off her makeup and hopefully get some sleep.

A/N

Hehehe. I was simply going to call this chapter 'Ressler loses his shit', but this is better. Before people start protesting: 'But Chameleon, why does he lose it like this? Surely this is a bit over the top?' Well, yeah. But Ressler has anger management issues. He does! Watch ep. 16: Mako Tanida. Hell, watch any episode. Whenever he needs to catch a criminal, Ressler has two reactions: either beat 'em up or shoot 'em, preferably in the head. That's what he does: he runs after them, then beats them up or shoots them, or gets beaten up or shot, himself. God, I love this guy

Still convinced he's overreacting? Right. Then consider the week he's had. He has to go undercover and pretend to be a kind of person he hates, to make friends with a bunch of people he loathes. He's been taking drugs, almost daily, which is another thing he is firmly against—even if he likes the effects. What's not to like, huh? Ok, before I continue with my little lecture on the effects of Crystal meth and cocaine, and please feel free to skip this…I never used it myself. I've been too chicken to try out coke, and meth was never so readily available to me for me to get curious and try it out. So all I know about it is second hand info, the interwebs and other literature. That said, I know a couple of people who've taken and done whatever they could get their hands on, and they never got addicted and are fine. Most of them are parents now, and good ones, too. I'm not here to tell people drugs are evil; I'm just explaining why Ressler loses his shit

Especially meth is pretty bad for your body. How does it work? Well, Methamphetamine (and cocaine, too) stimulates your brain into producing huge amounts of dopamine and adrenalin. In short, dopamine makes you feel really good. However, once the high wears off, the brain is deprived of dopamine, bringing on depression, fatigue, irritability and a load of other mental and physical unpleasantness. Another thing is that while you're high, you don't feel physical tiredness—which is one of the reasons people use speed at rave parties, so they can dance all night. However, when you crash, both your brain and your body are worn out, and need some time to recover. If you don't take this time, or if you keep using the drug, even if you're not on a binge and keep taking it well after the high is finished, you're depleting your body's reserves. Basically, it feels as if you've got a hangover.

This story takes place over 7 days, and Ressler's been taking either cocaine or meth for five, combined with alcohol. Silly guy. Additionally, he goes on a raid (which was basically running up and down buildings while shooting and beating people up: his favourite!), gets kicked the shit out of by Shuo, loses some blood, gets shot point blank in the chest, which breaks or at least contuses a couple of ribs, and doesn't sleep enough unless his body just gives up on him and knocks him out (Or Lizzie exposes him to Out of Africa, which is about the same thing). Oh right, and he has a concussion. He is mentally and physically exhausted, even if he doesn't quite realize it. He's never really stable (quiet is not the same as calm and stable—again, see almost every single episode) AND he's just been played. Again. By Reddington.

That's why he loses his shit.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Dear anonymous guest, thank you for taking the time to leave a message, even though it was unnecessary rude and unkind. Yes, I'm still writing this crap. As a matter of fact I hope to post the final couple of chapters by the end of this week. As for nobody reading this, I wouldn't know exactly, but story stats suggest it's doing alright. And of course I know that you are reading it. You must really love hating it to have come this far. Or did you simply skip to the latest chapter (including the Author's note, which I purposefully placed at the very end so people could skip it if they didn't want to read it) to leave your little note? That would explain why you thought the plot was hard to follow, as it isn't, really.

Anyway, again thanks for your time. Hope you find another, better story soon.

And OTHER anonymous guest, thank you for sticking up for me

Ressler went to bed, head whirling with fatigue and alcohol, afraid it would take him a very long time to fall asleep, but the opposite was true. He'd wanted to thank Lizzie for caring enough to look him up, or perhaps something slightly less dramatic, but fell asleep so quickly he was gone before she'd returned from the bathroom.

He woke up from a nightmare at 3 o' clock, something confusing and terrifying, in which Aaron Stone had taken over his body and was trafficking children through the armoury of the Post Office while maiming FBI personnel by kneecapping them, and he spent five minutes agonizingly puking his guts out before rinsing his mouth with toothpaste—because he hated the taste of regurgitated alcohol and bile more than he feared the recurrence of another bout of vomiting—and crawled back into bed, where he fell asleep again instantly.

The second dream he had was about Audrey, which was nice because he hadn't dreamed of her for at least a week, and it was sweet and happy and filled with flowers and babies. But unfortunately she kept dying in front of him, stupidly repeating his name while her blood gushed through his fingers, and the babies started spewing blood from their umbilical cords, and he rushed back to the toilet to throw up some more.

"Are you alright?" Lizzie asked sleepily when he stumbled back into bed. She had slept through his first bout but had surfaced this time and blinked owlishly at him as he gingerly lay down beside her.

He touched her shoulder. "Mfine. Go to sleep." He himself was gone before he'd even closed his eyes.

The third time he started awake and found himself dry-heaving over the toilet, with tears rolling down his cheeks because it fucking _hurt_ to throw up with broken ribs, Lizzie knocked on the door and asked if she should call a doctor, or take him to the hospital.

"No," he rasped, desperately wondering how he could make it clear to his rebelling stomach that there was nothing left inside of it and that it should calm the hell down already. Having been body-slammed against a hard and unyielding object recently, it was no picnic sitting in a crouch embracing his toilet; and the dismal pain in his busted hand, the throbbing bruises on his knees, chin, scalp and arm, his cut lip and the icy tiles of the bathroom floor didn't really help to make him feel better. Ten minutes later, Lizzie knocked on the door again and let herself in with a glass of water and a plaid she'd found tucked away in a closet. He was touched by her thoughtfulness but immensely put out by her presence—vomiting was bad enough, doing so in company was pure hell.

"If you keep doing this, I will call a doctor," she said, draping the plaid over his shoulders.

Ressler wanted to protest that he was just drunk, and that drinking half a litre of whiskey would set anyone off, but his stomach chose that moment to make a third attempt to bring up his kidneys and when he regained control she was gone. He didn't feel like following her. Actually, he wasn't sure he could get up at all. However, over the next hour and a half, his body gradually settled, and when he woke up for the fourth time that night, it was when Lizzie touched his shoulder and told him that his pillow was infinitely more comfortable than his toilet seat, and wouldn't he prefer sleeping in bed?

He did. He was no longer nauseous but his legs were trembling, everything ached and he was feeling terribly cold despite the plaid. In bed, he discovered that Lizzie had made him a hot water bottle, actually made from an empty Coke bottle with a towel wrapped around it, and it almost made him cry.

"You didn't call a doctor, did you?" he asked hoarsely, as he curled up around it.

"No," she reassured him. "I figured you'd be ok when you stopped throwing up about half an hour ago." She rested her hand against his forehead. "You don't seem to have a temperature."

"I just need sleep."

She smiled. She really had the sweetest smile even if it didn't show any dimples at the moment. "Then perhaps you should try doing that instead of running off and throwing up most of the night."

"You're hilarious," said Ressler. He closed his eyes. For the first time that night, sleep did not come like a shot to the head. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She stroked his hair and yawned. "Now please go to sleep so I can do the same."

When Lizzie's cell phone alarm went off at seven, it took her more than a minute to fight her way up to consciousness, realize that the beeping she was hearing was her phone, that it was on the bedside table next to her, and that she had to press a button to make it stop chirping.

"I'm sorry," she muttered groggily. "I was still so fast asleep…"

She needn't have apologized. Ressler hadn't woken up; he hadn't even stirred. Lizzie frowned.

_Ok, that's a new one. Hello, Donnie? Did you die somewhere during the night?_ She touched his arm, the right one still sporting the bright tattoo, which he held cradled close to his body so his bandaged hand could rest on the pillow in front of his face. Sleep-warm, not feverish. She picked up his hand by the wrist, careful not to hurt him, but she guessed she didn't have to be afraid of that: he was completely out. _So what should I do? I should probably just let him sleep; I think he blew all his fuses last night, and god knows he could use a couple of hours more._

_So could I, for that matter._

Yawning, she dressed and made her way to her car to fetch her trolley. She still had a clean set of clothing from Baltimore, as she'd spent more than a day wearing Nicky's clothes. The pants she was currently wearing were covered in Theo's red and gingers hairs. As she took her shower, Liz wondered if Jess, who had collected her cat a little before lunch, would ever meet another Nicky, or that the whole persona would disappear. Wouldn't that be a waste? So much time and effort to build up a character, and for what cause, really? No one had probably spared Nicky more than a glance. And what about Aaron? She guessed Ressler had destroyed him by shooting Boscoe.

The idiot.

The idiot was still unconscious by the time she'd made and drunk coffee and lamented the absence of yoghurt in Ressler's fridge. Experimentally, she clapped her hands a few inches from his one visible ear, but no cigar: he didn't so much as twitch. Well, if she were going to mother him, she might as well do it properly.

Question: would a blown-out overly macho hothead like Ressler remember to go and see a doctor to treat a possibly broken hand, a concussion and likely broken ribs? Answer: nope. She got her laptop from her car, logged in and made an appointment in Ressler's name with Dr. Andreas Johnson for 10.15. Dr. Johnson was the doctor designated to the Post Office and the man to go to when you'd been shot down by infiltrating terrorists or clipped when chasing after bad guys. He operated (literally, sometimes) from the NHC, where he could make use of the medical facilities. Johnson wasn't there to perform life-saving surgery; if your heart's blood was all over the floor, you went through official channels and straight to the E.R., but he was part of the Post Office Health Plan, and that meant that it was much easier to make an appointment with him than with a regular doctor.

There, wasn't she caring? He could sleep for another two hours before he needed to meet his appointment, and with any luck he'd be more or less himself again by the time he clocked in at the Post Office. Cooper wouldn't be there before afternoon anyway. And would Ressler thank her? Probably not. Or maybe he would, you never knew.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and set the alarm for 9.30, surreptitiously glancing at his unmoving form—nope, he was breathing, but that was about the only thing that indicated life; his hand still lay where she had placed it after looking at his face. She frowned again.

"You're not in a coma, are you?" she asked, and prodded the tip of his nose with a stiff finger.

Ressler made an unspecific noise of protest, pulled up his arms and buried his face in the crook of his elbows. "Apparently not."

Satisfied that he wouldn't choke to death on his tongue because she hadn't been able to recognize unconsciousness, Lizzie left a few notes scattered through the apartment, packed up her kit and got into her car. She stopped on the way to buy a fresh fruit and yoghurt smoothie and parked in the garage adjacent to the Post Office at exactly 8.30.

Louanne Plant was standing opposite of the scanner on the elevator entrance, leaning her back against a concrete pillar, arms crossed, an exasperated look on her face. The security guard, Reynolds today, was sitting in his chair in front of the elevator, his machine gun held casually in his hands, pointing to the ground.

Lizzie came to a standstill in front of them and looked from the guard to Louanne, eyebrows arched. "Good morning?"

"Good morning, Liz," Louanne said.

The guard gave a nod.

"What are you doing here?" Lizzie asked.

"Well…Director Cooper told me to go here, yesterday…but apparently I haven't been cleared for access yet." She reached into the chest pocket of her coat and held up a security pass. Lizzie had a similar one. "It won't work. And so this gentleman won't let me in."

"Really?" Lizzie asked, holding out her hand. Louanne gave her the pass. It really was exactly the same as her own apart from the name and the picture, but when she scanned it, the screen flashed red and the doors to the elevator remained firmly closed. "Huh." She handed back the pass, took out her own and held it up to the guard. He nodded at her, and she swiped it through the scanner. The doors unlocked. "That's odd. I know she's cleared, Reynolds. Can't I take her in?"

"Sorry, Ma'am. Only on Agent Ressler's or Director Cooper's authority."

_Why can Ressler invite people in but not me?_ Lizzie thought prissily. She gave Louanne an apologetic look. "I'm sorry."

The woman shrugged. "Can't be helped. It's annoying, though. I've been here for half an hour and no one can activate my pass. And Director Cooper isn't answering his phone."

"Aram will fix it," Lizzie reassured her. "He'll be in within half an hour. Why don't you go and have a cup of coffee somewhere. I'll call you when he gets in. I still have your number on my Nicky phone."

Louanne thanked her, left the garage and presumably went in search of a cup of coffee while Lizzie entered the elevator and prepared for yet another long but hopefully productive day at the office.

To Ressler, waking up was like floating up from the bottom of a sea of utter darkness to a daylit cave occupied by a particularly loud and annoyingly shrieking bird. Even when he was more or less conscious, it took him another lifetime to realise that the bird was his alarm clock, and that he had to move to make it stop blaring. He automatically slammed down on it with his right hand and spent another two minutes clutching that hand to his chest alternatively cursing and praying that the pain would stop any time soon.

Moaning, he rolled onto his back and took inventory of all the various ways he hurt this fine morning. It didn't take him long, because _everything_ hurt. _That's what you get when you fuck up, _he told himself sternly. In retrospect the depth of fuck-up was truly astounding. Cover: blown. Carefully built-up friendship with suspect: blown. Chance to infiltrate further and meet Super villain with cat: blown. _Get up. Fix this. And better apologize to Cooper for attempting to bash his face in._ It almost worked, but he had to shake himself because he was falling asleep again, and even though he hadn't checked the time, he probably had to get up. _Think I'll skip my morning run again, though._ _Get up. Get up. For god's sake, get the hell up, man._ It took him another minute, but then he was sitting up at least. It felt like a minor victory. Then his alarm clock went off again because he'd accidentally hit the snooze button and he almost hit it again with his injured hand. Almost. As he touched the off button with the index finger of his left hand, he noticed a piece of paper on top of the alarm. It read:

_**Appointment with Dr. Johnson 10.15 at NHC. Make him X-ray:**_

_**-your head**_

_**-your hand**_

_**-your ribs**_

_**-anything else I either forgot or don't know about**_

Right. Liz. No longer here. He snorted at her note, coughed, cleared his raw throat—another new and exciting pain he could add to his growing collection!—and finally climbed out of bed.

Immediately, he wanted to sink back into it and stay there, motionless, for another eight hours.

Oh dear god, this day was going to suck.

But once he'd drunk about a gallon of water, taken two more aspirins with coffee, defrosted, toasted and devoured five slices of bread with jam and emptied his hot water reservoir under the shower again, he actually began to feel human again. One of the pros (he was feeling positive) of puking until your stomach lining threatened to give way was that the alcohol was out of his system, and that the hangover wasn't so bad.

Keen had left him three more notes. One next to a full coffee pot and an empty glass: _**Drink at least two glasses of water and then drain the pot!**_, and another in his bathroom, against his bottle of aftershave, saying: _**Shave but don't use this or become the Home Alone kid**_. The last one lay beneath his phone and was the only useful one: _**Cooper should be in early afternoon. I'll tell him you're at the NHC. If you can't make it to the office because of medical reasons, please call in and take the day off.**_ She had underlined 'off' three times.

Ressler huffed. "I was wrong. You should've adopted that child after all, Liz. You'd be a perfect mom." But he was touched, despite the fact that she was meddling and he really was old enough to take care of himself. He considered skipping the appointment, but his hand really hurt very badly, and he might as well try to get better painkillers.__

He dressed in the standard PO suit, sans tie because the pressure of it on the cuts on his neck made him feel like he was suffocating. That would take some getting used to again: he'd enjoyed wearing casual clothing as Aaron. Outside, he hesitated between his black SUV and the Harley; driving the SUV would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than the motorcycle, but he knew he wouldn't be allowed to keep the Harley, and so it might be better if he dropped it off at the Post Office to show his willingness to cooperate.

He sighed. He hadn't treated it well, the Harley. It had a couple of scratches and one of Solomon's stray buckshot balls had gauged a deep mark across the tank. It had, however, been the one good thing about this whole mess of an operation, and he wasn't quite ready to give it up without one last ride.

By now the aspirins were starting to work. If he didn't switch gear and kept the gas handle steady, he thought he could handle driving a motorcycle. _Fuck it, _he thought, put on Aaron's leather jacket and the helmet and rode the Harley to the NHC.

He was five minutes late for his appointment, but Johnson had treated him before and another positive aspect of being in thoroughly bad shape (he would be positive or it killed him, really) was that other people were more than willing to cut him some slack.

"So you were hit in the head three times over four days?" Johnson asked, touching gentle fingers to the lump on the back of his head. He was a large man, about fifty, soft-spoken and with an elegant moustache he liked to finger when diagnosing people.

"It'd be more accurate to say that I hit things with my head, but yeah."

"Headaches?"

"Yes. It's tolerable, now."

"Dizziness? Nausea?"

"Um, yeah. But that may have been the result of too much alcohol."

"You drank alcohol after sustaining a head injury? How much? Approximately?"

"I'd say about half a bottle."

"Of wine?"

"Whiskey."

Johnson rubbed the tip of his moustache between his fingers. "I see. You are aware that imbibing alcohol is unwise when suffering from a concussion?"

"I wasn't aware I had one. And I was bored."

"You were bored." The man smiled. He shone a light in Ressler's eyes, flicking it off when Ressler squeezed his eyes closed in reaction. "Are you experiencing memory loss? Sensitivity to light?"

"No to the first. Yes to the second."

"I think we can establish a concussion, then," the doctor said, and typed something on his computer. "You were obviously in a fight. What happened to your hand?"

"I smashed it into a container."

"What kind of container? Like a box, or…?"

"A shipping container."

"Ah. Aimed for someone's head and missed?"

"Not…really."

"Hm." He began to unwrap the bandages, until he found out that the last bit was stuck to the cut on Ressler's knuckles and it made him blanch when he pulled at it, got a basin and a bottle of sterilized water and told Ressler to soak his hand until the gauze came away on its own. In the meantime, he looked at the half-healed scars on his neck. He expressed his belief that they would heal cleanly and that even the scarring would probably be minimal.

That was a relief. Ressler hadn't been looking forward to explaining why he was sporting what looked like a decapitation mark on parties. While they were waiting for the wet bandage to come unstuck from his knuckles, Johnson made Ressler take off his shirt and took X-rays of his chest.

"Large man?" he asked, with a look at the colours that now even more matched those of his sleeve.

"Large man with a shotgun," Ressler said. "I was wearing a vest." He winced as the doctor gently pressed along his ribs.

"Good thing you were. I'd hate to think what you'd have looked like without one."

"Kebab, I'd say," Ressler said. "I know what shotgun wounds look like."

"Yes," Johnson said, checking his file. "You would."

Not long after that, Ressler was able to pull the gauze off of his split knuckles, baring an injury that seemed, to him, to be by far the worst he'd had sustained: a horrid, gaping cut seemingly to the bone, but that Johnson only hummed over, glued back together and covered with a new, more professional bandage after X-raying his hand as well.

Johnson went to collect his X-rays, hung one of them on a light wall and said, "Well. You're lucky; you only have hair fractures on your middle finger—you can see them here, and here and here—and by the looks of it you didn't sever any tendons. However, I don't think you'll be doing any writing for the next couple of weeks. A _shipping container_?" Ressler scowled and remained silent. The doctor put up the second picture. "You've got two cracked ribs and extensive bruising. The breaks are here, seventh rib, and here, eighth rib." He indicated them on the X-ray picture. "Clean fractures; that is to say, their break surfaces fit together well and shouldn't take much longer to heal than four to five weeks. It'll be painful but it's important you keep breathing normally and not suppress coughs because of the pain, so make sure you take enough pain medication. I don't see any complications to the organs underneath…that's good. If he'd hit you, he'd have crushed your heart. Have you had any problems with that? Palpitations? Skips?"

_I thought I was dying yesterday. Does that count? Might've been the result of taking liberal doses of meth and cocaine, though._ He shrugged noncommittally. There was nothing wrong with his heart now.

"Very well," Johnson said. "You can put your shirt back on."

Ressler gritted his teeth and awkwardly did up his buttons with his left hand. Johnson knew better than to propose a cast for his arm and splinted his broken finger to his index finger instead. He was given a sling, a prescription for a mouth-watering number of painkillers, an envelope with Johnson's diagnosis to hand in to Cooper, and the doctor's urgent advice to avoid driving, find a comfortable hole in the ground and hibernate for a week or so. Ressler thanked the doctor for his time, got his lovely drugs and took the exact dosage he was entitled to, ignored the advice and made took off the sling because wearing it made it impossible to drive a motorbike.

The doctor's visit had taken him more than an hour, with the waiting for the X-rays, and he had lunch with more coffee before making his way to the Post Office.

When he parked the Harley in the spot he usually parked his car, he noticed Cooper's car was already in its designated spot. He grimaced; he wasn't looking forward to facing his boss. Never one to let unpleasant business get in his way, though, he purposefully strode over to the entrance. The guard at the elevator appraised him with a raised eyebrow and Ressler glared at him, daring him to make a comment. The guard wisely kept silent. Ressler rode the elevator to the black site, keeping his head down to ward off the dizziness the downward motion caused. The stark lighting below hurt his eyes, but since he could hardly wear sunglasses inside, he had no choice but to bear with it and hope his eyes would get used to it soon. Once he could see without shielding his face from the light, he saw that Reddington had deigned to grace them with his presence. It seemed that destructive rage hadn't left him completely after all; he had to stand still and take a couple of steadying breaths to keep from picking up the nearest stapler and hurling it into the man's teeth.

Reddington, who was discussing something with Aram at the computer bridge, must have sensed a Ressler-shaped blip on his inner radar—or maybe he could feel his hate as a kind of glow warming his back—because he turned and gave him a pitying once-over as he rigidly walked past the bridge and towards the stairs to Cooper's office.

"Aah, Agent Ressler. My god, but every time I see you, you seem worse off than the previous time. I do hope you feel better than you look."

Ressler carefully kept his mouth closed and his features frozen, making do with the barest incline of his head.

"I believe Director Cooper wants to see you," Aram said, handing him a much-needed escape opportunity. He, as well as the other personnel, was eyeing him a bit shiftily.

"I'd like a chat with Harold, too," Reddington said. "Please tell him I'll be along later, once Mr. Mojtabai and I have finished going through this list." Ressler kept quiet. Reddington laughed. "Oh, you're giving me the silent treatment now. Isn't that adorable? Tell me, Donald, how are you ever going to get your questions answered if you refuse to talk to me?"

"I'll find a way," Ressler said, giving him a smile that made Aram twitch and Reddington grin delightedly. He moved past them and started climbing the stairs leading to Cooper's office.

"I'm looking forward to that!" Red called up to him.

Ressler bit his tongue and managed to not pitch the keys of the Harley into his eye.

A woman who seemed vaguely familiar to him was just coming down the stairs from Cooper's office. When she saw him, she halted, stuck out her hand and said, "Morning. I am…"

_In my way._ He ignored her hand, turned his body sideways and walked past her muttering a generic apology, and entered Cooper's office.

Harold Cooper liked to think that he had heart for his personnel. He didn't like it when their personal lives threatened to interfere with their ability to do their jobs, and he was sometimes frustrated with the way they acted, but on the whole he was fond of them, thought they were performing well, appreciated their efforts and cared for their well-being. He had been honestly upset when Meera Malik was killed, and had hated meeting her grieving family at her funeral to offer empty words of comfort and regret.

In Cooper's opinion, the values of love and family were vastly overrated. He did not have a family, having never met a woman who could put up with his quirks and habits, like buying caravans and blowing them up in the dunes, spending huge amounts of money on French wine and cultivating Bonsai trees.

It was said that a family gave one a reason to better oneself, because one wanted to protect them and make sure they were happy. Over the years, and especially the last year, Cooper had come to the conclusion that that idea was, quite simply, wrong. In fact, the opposite held true. Take Reddington. A rising naval Officer with a bright future ahead of him. Turned into a criminal after his family burned in an accident that so damaged the man he turned to crime. True, he was impressive as a criminal, but love was rarely advertised as the impetus to start killing people, trafficking illegal substances, bombing cities and helping terrorists escape from justice.

Or take Liz Keen. Her marriage was supposed to be the foundation of her life, giving her strength and security. Instead, it had all but destroyed her. She had survived the experience, perhaps come out even stronger, but he doubted she spent the lonely evenings in her temporary safe house lodgings smoking Cuban cigars and congratulating herself on the added character it had brought her.

And take Donald Ressler. Cooper actually liked working with Ressler. He was solid, dedicated, and intelligent without being overly bright, which made him very dependable. If you told Ressler to lead a squad, find a suspect, stop a homicide or shoot a man, you could trust him to do so and do it to the utmost of his capabilities. Capable, that was the right word. He was no genius, but he would do what it took, and take satisfaction from that.

Ressler was a great example of why love was a disaster. It distracted you. One moment, he was a prime specimen of work-obsessed FBI field personnel; the next he was a love-sick idiot focused only on getting his fiancée out of harm's way. And when she was killed, he went completely ballistic, flipped the bird to his career and went on a killing spree to avenge his loved one, who would undoubtedly not have supported that kind of behaviour had she still been alive. Cooper did not think Ressler had any idea how close he'd come to being kicked out of the Post Office and, indeed, the FBI, and how hard Cooper had worked to save him. The one good thing to come from Audrey's death was that Ressler was now back on the job and focused as never before. Volatile, sometimes, but capable. Reliable.

Until yesterday.

Cooper looked up from the final documents making Louanne Plant's transfer to the Post Office a fact as Ressler knocked on his door and entered…and swallowed the cutting remark he was about to make. Even if people fucked up this royally, he still had heart for his personnel, and he wasn't the kind of man who kicked a dog when it was down.

The man looked _terrible_, and Cooper was also not the kind of man who generally took notice of people's appearance. When one of his employees went home with the flu and their co-workers nodded wisely and said, "Yes, I saw that coming, they were so pale." it always came as a complete surprise to him. It was impossible to overlook this kind of hideous pallor, though. The one time he'd seen Ressler look worse he had been only half conscious and two gallons of his blood was gelatinising on the floor below his leg. He hastily waved at the chair opposite his desk, hoping his subordinate wouldn't pass out before reaching it.

He did not. Ressler stiffly sat down, face white and drawn but expressionless, and started, "Sir, I apologize for…"

"Accepted," Cooper interrupted him. With a small sense of regret he abandoned the disciplinary lashing he had prepared because come on! how could he tell Ressler he was a total disappointment if the man radiated painful awareness of that fact like a bucket of nuclear waste? Instead he asked, "How are you?" and winced in sympathy at the humourless quirk of his mouth.

"Fine."

"You've been to see a doctor?" Ressler nodded and handed him the envelope. Cooper calmly put it beside him, unopened. "I don't want to read this. Give me a summary."

Ressler rubbed his temple, stopped doing so abruptly, placed his hands in his lap and listed, "Concussion, broken ribs. Something else…fractured finger. Couple of bruises." He reached into his pocket with his left hand and put a vehicle key on the desk. "Keys to the Harley."

"I'll have it picked up."

"It's here, on the parking lot near the elevator," Ressler said. His eyes were steady but dull.

Cooper sincerely doubted he should be let anywhere near a motorcycle, or any vehicle, period. "I'll have someone take you home."

"Home?" Ressler jerked up straight, a note of panic in his flat voice. "No. We still have to find Blofeld. And the missing container. I need to talk to Anasenko Yevgenieva, she must know something."

"Ressler, you clearly aren't well. Perhaps…"

"Don't send me home. Sir. I can fix this. I _need_ to fix this." He jerked again as Reddington opened the door and then knocked on it politely.

Cooper glared at Red. Red smiled. "It seems the list will not yield anything interesting for the time being," he stated, letting himself in. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something? Oh please, remain seated, Donald. If you won't talk to me, at least you can listen and become a little bit wiser that way." He cast a benevolent look at Cooper. "You must have questions. I'm willing to answer them. You seem to think this operation was a failure. I can assure you that it is not. It may even become a huge success."

"It isn't?" Cooper asked. "Pray tell how it isn't."

Reddington chuckled. "Dear Harold, I said that I'd answer your questions, not volunteer information. Ask and be enlightened. Or," he added, "keep glaring at me and stay in the dark. It's entirely up to you."

"Excuse me," Louanne said, with a short knock on the door.

Lizzie looked up from her paperwork. "Yes?"

"Who's Chuckles there?" She pointed outside the office.

"I'm sorry, who?"

"Blonde guy, built like a brick house. Face covered in bruises."

"Oh, him," Lizzie smiled. "That's probably Ressler." She wondered whether she should be worried or relieved he'd come to work.

Louanne thumped her fist against the door. "Oh right, _that's_ Donnie Ressler! I thought his face seemed familiar."

"You know him?"

"I worked with him. Once. Long time ago, eight years or so. He was very green, stubborn as hell, but he could run like a rhino. I remember that. Dear lord. What happened to him? I thought he got shot in the chest; how did his face get all messed up?"

Intrigued, Lizzie abandoned all pretence of working on her report and gestured to a chair. "You worked with him?" So Ressler did know her. "What case was that?"

Louanne's face, although completely different from Malik's, took on the exact same regretfully friendly expression she'd sometimes had. "I'm not allowed to say."

Lizzie sighed. "I don't need specifics. I'm just…"

"Interested in hearing about your colleague as a greenhorn," the woman finished shrewdly.

Lizzie felt a pang of dislike, but it faded when Louanne smiled again. "I really can't remember all that much about working with him. It was only for a couple of days. We were both pretty new to the job, then. I'd been there in…I'd been there for some time already, and he had a hard time believing I knew what I was talking about. Stubborn, like I said. But in the end it worked out well. We got the bad guys." She chuckled. "Do you know, did he finally marry that fiancée of his? Abby…or Ally, or something? Do they have a dozen children?"

"Audrey," Lizzie said automatically. "Uh, no. She was…she died last year."

The smile died on Louanne's face. "She did, huh?" she remarked slowly. Her face grew pensive. "Poor man. He was totally besotted with that girl. Wouldn't shut up about her."

"He's doing fine," Lizzie said, voice just a hint sharper than was necessary.

Louanne shook herself. "It's none of my business anyway." She got up and pushed the chair back against Ressler's desk. "Reddington is. Is he…often present in person? I thought he was more of an asset, like an informant."

"He's rarely here. I don't know why he is today." She shrugged. "Red does what Red does. He may be here to help us find Blofeld—he often has the most outrageous, brilliant ideas. I think Aram found something. Have you met him yet? Reddington, I mean?"

"Briefly," Louanne nodded. "He seems charming. Unobtrusive. But many of the big fish are. You need some charm to make people trust you, I guess."

_Maybe_, Lizzie thought. _Or maybe he's just a good man at heart, who takes loyalty very seriously, and who's simply very, very smart and sometimes very, very lonely. Not all wolves have lost their inner sheep completely._ She only smiled faintly, though. Her relationship with Red was a special one, sometimes one she cherished and often one she wished never existed. She couldn't imagine a world without Reddington anymore. Her whole life revolved around him—and had, long, long before she even knew he existed. _He knew my dad. Loved him. Loved him enough to kill him, and it ripped him to pieces. He loves me, even though he knows I hate him for what he's done. And I love him, too, in spite of what he's done. Without me, he wouldn't have been here at all. And without him, I wouldn't have this job. I'd still be living with Tom._ She sighed.

"They're coming out," Louanne said, with a nod at Cooper's office. "All of them."

"Let's hear what Cooper has to say," Lizzie suggested.


	20. Chapter 20

"Where is the container with the drugs?" Cooper asked.

Red pressed his lips together, creating little dimples in the lines next to his mouth. It was the equivalent of an eye roll. "You know, Harold, there is a reason I hate talking to the FBI. You people are so rigid when it comes to approaching a subject. Straight to the results, no interest in cause or background or the personal reasons behind things."

Cooper sighed, "Ok. I'll bite. Where did the children come from?"

Red nodded in satisfaction. "Some weeks ago, an old friend of mine contacted me in a panic because his daughter had gone missing. Due to certain activities he had been…researching, he had reason to believe she had been kidnapped."

"And he contacted you because he thought you had something to do with it?"

Red smiled coldly. "He contacted me because I have a reputation that I can find people when they unexpectedly go missing."

"You needed his help," Ressler surmised. "He wouldn't give it to you unless you helped him first."

"He is a _friend_ of mine," Red emphasized. "But yes, it was of some importance that he would feel indebted to me and help me if I needed him to. That said, I can assure you that I had nothing whatsoever to do with the abduction of his child."

"How did you find out Blofeld was behind it?" asked Cooper.

"Through an associate of mine."

"Does this associate have a name?"

"I'm sure his mother didn't call him 'child' forever," Reddington said. "Let us refer to him as 'Jack' for the moment. Jack was one of my eyes and ears in South Africa. Through nothing more but a coincidence he found out about a major drug shipment destined for Baltimore. Contact with eyes and ears in that city proved that the operation was run by Blofeld. As Jack followed the container with drugs, he found out that another container, arriving in Venezuela on the same ship, held living cargo. I traced it back to Somalia, and if I'm correct, those entrepreneurs have been dealt with by now." For a moment, his eyelids lowered, giving his pleasant face a dead, threatening look. Ressler had no doubt that the men responsible for kidnapping those children were indeed 'dealt with'. "Both containers were shipped under the same name. One was destined for Mexico, the other for Baltimore."

"The children were supposed to be shipped off to Mexico?" Ressler asked. He was trying to put two and two together, but his brain worked as slow as molasses and thinking made his head hurt. "Who was supposed to get them, then?"

Reddington gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I don't know. Some cartel? Evil men working for an evil organization? What mattered was that my friend's daughter was in that container with a great number of other stolen children, and that I had no means to get her or the other children out. The marina was too well guarded. I had no way to get in or organize a breakout. So, Jack came with the suggestion to switch the two containers in Venezuela, where they would be offloaded and placed on different ships. And Jack was good to his word. He gave me the serial code of the container holding the children."

"Couldn't he have alarmed the local authorities?" Cooper asked. "How long were these children locked up in that container? Days? Weeks? Were they fed or cared for at all?"

"According to Child Services, they were provided with food and plenty of water in plastic bottles, and each was given a glow stick," Reddington said. His voice grew soft and somehow vicious. "The journey lasted two weeks."

Ressler felt sick. All those tiny children, locked up in the dark…How many had had the wit and the foresight to save their glow stick and make sure that the others didn't use theirs in the first few hours? How many had survived anyway?

Reddington continued, and Ressler forced himself to pay attention. "No, Harold, my man had no way to warn the authorities. Or perhaps he tried. I haven't heard from him since he gave me the serial code to the container. I wasn't even certain he'd been able to make the switch."

"He was killed?"

"I believe so."

"But you knew that at least one of the containers would be delivered to Baltimore."

"Yes. It would either contain the drugs, and then I'd have to go to Mexico to find my friend's daughter. Or it would contain the children. And then the drugs would be inconsequential."

"Two hundred million dollars worth of meth, cocaine and XTC is not inconsequential," Cooper said dryly. He shot Ressler a look. "I want that container found. Trace it; you have its serial number."

"Let's find Blofeld first," Reddington said calmly. "Aram traced all calls made to Boscoe's phone. The ones we assume were made by Blofeld were all made by a disposable phone."

"No leads," Ressler muttered. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"None from the phone," Red said, not unkindly. "And perhaps none from Anasenko, but Boscoe might prove a wealth of information once he's recovered a little. I'm sure a little chat with him will bring forth something." He addressed Cooper. "Let's see what your people can come up with, shall we?"

After a short pause, Cooper nodded. He got up, opened the door and preceded Red and Ressler to the computer bridge.

Midway down the stairs, Ressler could not keep silent anymore. "Did you find her?" he asked softly. "That girl? Is she alright?"

Reddington looked back at him, and there was something in his face, something proud and soft and fierce that made Ressler hate him just a little bit less. "Yes," he said.

Liz and Louanne joined Aram, Cooper, Red and Ressler in front of the video wall. Aram had entered the name El Atél in several databases, and three names had popped up, but Reddington shook his head at all of them.

"Too young; Blofeld's been at this for at least ten years if not longer. That one has been imprisoned in Bolivia for the last three years. That one's known location is in the Amazon. He can't be Blofeld."

Lizzie frowned at the screens. One of them showed an open Word file, simply spelling the name. "We're looking at this wrong," she said. "If this is Blofeld himself and not another proxy, this name should hold a pun. El Atél doesn't mean anything."

"Are you sure?" Cooper asked. "It might a slang, or dialect…who knows where this man comes from."

Red shook his head. "She's right. In Spanish, El Atél means nothing."

"You did hear it correctly?" Cooper asked Ressler, "It was pronounced this way?"

"Yes," Ressler said curtly. He squinted at the bright screens.

"What," Louanne said slowly, "if the pronunciation is right but we're getting the wrong idea because we've spelled it wrong? It could be Ellat El, or E. la Telle."

"It might not even be Spanish," Lizzie nodded. "We assumed it was Spanish because of the 'El' part, but it may be a different language. I think you may be right about the spelling issue."

Next to her, Aram made a little humming sound. "What," he said in turn, "if it isn't spelled like that at all? What if it's not that, but…" His fingers flew over his keyboard and a word in Arabic appeared on screen. "This."

"_Ạlʿtạl_," both Red and Louanne read, pronouncing it exactly the same way as El Atél.

"I suppose it's possible," Red said.

Cooper stared at him, clearly hating the fact that he didn't speak Arabic. "What does that mean?"

"Doorman."

Ressler whipped his head to face him so quickly he had to put his hands on the table to steady himself. "What? Doorman?" he asked. "As in Porter?"

"Well, yes. _Ạlʿtạl_ means a variety of things…"

"Of course…" Ressler breathed. "It makes perfect sense. I know who Blofeld is," he said, a strange and somewhat scary elation brightening his features. "Liz, lend me the keys to your car. I'm going back."

"Uh, I don't think so. I'm fine taking you, but you're not driving; I am."

"No one is going anywhere," Cooper said firmly, "until I know what you're talking about. Ressler? The word 'porter' means something to you?"

"Yes, sir. Whenever we had to go Outside, there was a man who opened the door for us. He was just there, but he was always _there_, present but out of sight. I assumed he was one of Boscoe's henchmen—he assisted him with little things, served us beer and…and. And all the while he could observe us and see who best fitted his plans. He must've chosen Claus," he realized all of a sudden, turning to Lizzie, "He must've spoken to Claus when I was gone; that's why Claus knew there would be more shipments. He chose Claus, not me. Boscoe would've chosen me, because of his son, but…That's why Claus tried to kill me; he wanted to make sure I was out of the way, and that's why he wouldn't talk."

"And that's why Claus knew Solomon would try to kill you," Lizzie agreed. "Blofeld had probably told _Solomon_ he was the man for the job. One of you would kill the other. Claus could take out the one left. Only if Claus had killed you himself already, it would be easy to take out Solomon as well."

"There sure were a lot of people trying to kill you," Louanne said dryly.

"I'm notorious for making enemies easily," Ressler shrugged.

"Quite," Cooper said. "But before you run off to Baltimore again, let me propose a different strategy: let the local police arrest your porter."

"I can identify him," Ressler protested, but Cooper cut him short.

"If you describe him, I'm sure the locals can recognize him. He must be a well-known figure at that club. Don't you have a picture of him?"

"No."

"Nothing in ViCap either," Lizzie reported. "For none of the aliases."

"Did you ever meet him, Keen?"

"No sir. I've never been Outside."

"Then describe him." This to Ressler, who was beginning to look increasingly peaky as he was forced to think fast through the haze of concussion and painkillers.

Nevertheless his answer came readily enough: "About 5.5, slender build, either mixed race Asian—Indian, perhaps, or Middle Eastern, lightly tanned skin, dark, thinning hair, brown eyes. His age was hard to determine, could be anything between thirty and forty-five."

"Did he ever give you a name?"

"No. Boscoe would know, though."

"Agreed. Keen, Plant, I need the two of you in Baltimore first thing tomorrow morning."

"He isn't here?" Ressler asked.

"No." Cooper shot him a stern glance and answered him on his way to tell one of the techies to get him on the phone with the Baltimore police. "He's still in the hospital in Baltimore."

"Oh. Right." Ressler lowered his eyes, shoulders drooping.

Lizzie wanted to hug him; he looked so shitty and so uncharacteristically despondent. _Better not. I'd probably only hurt him. And he should be sorry for shooting Boscoe. Besides: Cooper. And Red._ The latter shouldn't make a difference, but he did. She really didn't want Red to know about the weird non-relationship she was having with Ressler.

"Well then," Red said, picking up his hat from where he had placed it on a laptop on the bridge. "I'll leave the rest of this in your hands. I have a plane to catch." He gave Lizzie a nod.

"Your own plane, I take it," she said. "Which will wait for you. Why are you in such a hurry?"

"Oh, people to visit, places to see…you know the drill."

"The destination in Mexico," Ressler said, still staring at his hands. "Where is it?"

Lizzie had no clue what he was talking about. Red obviously did, because he smiled a little and shook his head. "You'll just have to find out for yourself. Like Harold said, over 200 million dollars is a lot of money, and I've lost a lot of resources over the past eight months."

"What are you talking about?" Lizzie asked.

"A race," Red said. He put his hat on his head. "It's been good to see you, Lizzie. And to meet you, Mrs. Plant. How _did_ you lose that finger? You must tell me one time. Donald." Ressler didn't react, and Reddington didn't taunt him. He simply turned around and left.

Cooper didn't mention his absence when he returned. "I've notified the police and put out an APB on the man you know as the Porter. We must, however, assume that Blofeld turned tail and ran the moment his operation blew up." Ressler's shoulders slumped a little further. "Until we have any certainty he's still in Baltimore, we're letting the BPD handle things. Be prepared to move out fast, though. Agent Ressler, a word with you?"

Liz tried to catch Ressler's eye to give him a reassuring smile, but he avoided her gaze and followed Cooper in a way that reminded her unpleasantly of a whipped dog. God, but that look suited him badly. Really, she'd prefer him in his most aggressive, arrogant, overbearing moods over this.

Louanne touched her arm. "How badly did he screw up?" she asked. Lizzie shrugged. She went back to her and Ressler's office, away from any sensitive ears. "Pretty badly," she sighed. "But if we can catch Blofeld, things'll turn out ok."

Louanne looked concerned. "What if we don't? What if he ran?"

"Then I guess we'll have to make sure we at least find the container with the drugs. Apparently it's been delivered, or will be delivered, in Mexico." She straightened her back. "Come on. Help me track that container. We have to find it before Reddington gets his hands on it."

"I don't need to tell you," Cooper said, as he closed the door and sat down behind his desk, "that your conduct during this mission has been far from exemplary. Don't get me wrong, I think you've done a good job overall, but what happened yesterday…There will be an inquiry by the board." Ressler inclined his head in acceptance, then looked up sharply as his boss continued, "Until your case has been reviewed, you're grounded."

"Grounded? But I…"

"Ressler, I don't think you appreciate how serious this is. After last year's review, you'll have to be very careful with your answers if you want to remain part of this task force."

Ressler gaped at him. "The board prioritizes slapping me on the fingers over letting me catch a criminal who not only traffics drugs but people—_children_—as well? What the f-…" He bit down on his tongue, hard enough to draw blood. It wouldn't do to lose his temper again. Cooper was on his side—at least he hoped he was.

"I know it's frustrating," Cooper said. "It shouldn't take long, though. I'm expecting Finch's panel later this afternoon."

Ressler snorted. "Today? Do they skype reports these days? How'd they even know I screwed up so fast? They're not wasting any time to judge and execute me, are they?"

"Let's not let it get to that," Cooper said dryly. "I hate taking job interviews, and I wasn't planning on doing them again any time soon." _Saved by Cooper's dislike of application interviews. Hooray._ "I read your reports," Cooper continued. "Is there anything you've left out?"

"No."

"You weren't on drugs the night the shipment arrived?"

"No." Giving in to the urge to move, Ressler started pacing up and down the narrow office. Cooper followed him with his eyes, but did not tell him to stop, for which Ressler was absurdly grateful. As long as he could keep moving, he might not explode into a hundred thousand pieces. "I'd been high almost every night before that, though."

"On what?"

"Meth, mostly. Cocaine, the last two nights."

"There wasn't any way you could have avoided that?"

Ressler snarled silently, unaware he was doing so. "No. I was supposed to blend in. Being a teetotaller wouldn't have given the desired results." _Apart from that, it was fucking awesome._

"Had you been using Methamphetamines on the night of the raid?"

Christ, the raid. He'd almost forgotten about it. "Yes."

"And the main purpose of that raid was to get James Rainfield, correct? Saving the child and retrieving the drugs Rainfield had stolen from Boscoe were secondary goals."

"Yes."

"You were the one to save the child."

"By shooting Sk—Rainfield in the elbow. Yes."

And so on, and so forth. Cooper kept asking him questions, making him explain his actions. All of which, up to the point that he'd shot Boscoe through the legs, made perfectly good sense to him. But then, he guessed it had been that last hour that had prompted the inquiry, and he'd only lost his mind when he'd opened the container and laid eyes on those poor kids. Sure, the pressure had been building up for a while, but it had been those kids that…

"How many were there?" he asked, interrupting Cooper in the middle of another question. "Those kids, how many…did they all make it?"

Cooper closed his mouth, a frown of annoyance furrowing his brow, then his face softened and he said, "There were 50 children in the container…officially. All of them below the age of ten. Six did not survive, five are in critical condition—dehydration, mostly. The rest are in reasonably good physical health and are expected to recover quickly with enough food and rest."

_Right. How quickly would __**you**__ recover if you spent days on end in the dark, knowing that the body you've been huddling against for warmth has suddenly stopped providing heat because it's no longer alive…Being locked up with dead bodies?_

"Ressler." The sound of his name started him out of his thoughts.

"Sir?"

Cooper paused, then gave him a little nod. "Tell them the truth, like you just told me." He hadn't told Cooper about his little try-out night with Squeeze, only about Cindy and her fake tattoo skills, but he didn't think mentioning that would add anything, anything but more trouble, that was. "Don't hold anything back. I'll sanction as many of your actions retroactively as I can." He studied Ressler with a calculative expression on his face. "You said you had a concussion; how are you holding up?"

"Fine," he said automatically, and hoped he wouldn't chuck up in Cooper's waste bin. He wasn't feeling so good anyway, and being nervous didn't exactly improve his physical state.

"Excellent," Cooper said. "Carry on."

Ressler carried on.

Dembe drove Reddington to the airport, taking a right turn to the private jet departure lanes. He gave the car keys to a man in a suit, checked to make sure they hadn't left anything in the car and followed his employer on board.

When he entered, Red was squatting in front of a chair; in the chair, her legs pulled up to her chest, was a small, dusky-skinned girl. Shukran. He was speaking to her in Arabic, but she did not answer and only watched him with large, long-lashed eyes.

As Dembe sat down in a chair a few feet away, Red sighed, came to his feet and walked over to his body guard.

"Maybe you should try it. She won't talk to me."

"She's been through hell," Dembe replied. "We are strange men, introducing themselves after a great number of other strange men. We took her away from those who had accompanied her during her stay. What she needs is her mother."

"I can call Abdul the moment we've taken off." Red sighed. "He can put her on. I just…so badly want to comfort her. Tell her that it's over, that she's safe. I don't think I'm getting through to her."

"Perhaps she would like some fruit?" Dembe suggested. "Has she eaten anything since Emilio delivered her this morning? Familiar food might make her feel better."

"I already asked her. She declined."

"She's frightened. If we…" He fell silent when Victor announced that they were ready for take-off.

Reddington sat down in the chair next to him and strapped in, and they conversed softly while the plane taxied to the departure lane and took off.

"Perhaps we should simply give the food to her, not offer it. And she should sleep. It's a long trip to Saudi-Arabia."

"She won't take anything from me," Red murmured. He touched Dembe's shoulder. "My friend, you know I wouldn't for any reason ask you to remember your own stay in purgatory, but if you could help her, assure her that everything will be alright…I'd be…really grateful."

Dembe smiled. The smile held sadness, compassion and understanding. Many knew Raymond as a heartless man, a void covered by a thin veneer of charm. Sometimes, he was. There was an emptiness in his heart where something that had once flowered had been brutally torn out. But he was not heartless, on the contrary, and at this moment, his inability to comfort his friend's daughter was tearing him apart. Dembe replied in Arabic, "My life is yours, my brother, as you know. My nightmarish recollections are yours, and if they serve your cause, I will remember them gladly."

When the fasten seat belts light had gone out, Dembe left his chair, met Anne in the galley, and returned with a bowl filled with pieces of fresh pineapple, orange and mango. He kneeled down in front of little Shukran and placed the bowl in front of her.

"See here, little princess," he said in Arabic. "Eat these, and feel better. I have been where you were, and I remember how much I craved the sweetness of fruit when I came out of that dark and stifling hell."

She stared at him. "You were not there," she whispered in the same language, hiding her face behind her knees.

"Not in your box," he nodded. "In another, a very long time ago. I was a little older than you, little princess. But I remember it as if it were yesterday."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't want to remember."

Dembe took a deep breath. "You will always remember," he said softly. "It left a dark mark on your soul. But it will become better." He gently pressed down on her knees, so she unfolded and sat straight, and placed the bowl of fruit in her lap. "Eat. We will call your mother. You can speak to her. You're going back home, and you will be alright." He swallowed as the girl began to cry, stroked one big hand over her glossy hair. "Don't cry, little princess." He picked up the spoon, caught a couple of fruit goblets and raised it to her mouth. Her lips, already parted because of her crying, opened wider and accepted the fruit. "There you go. Eat. Become stronger." She kept crying, but she chewed and swallowed and opened her mouth when he offered a second spoonful.

Dembe kept feeding her, and the girl kept crying, but she emptied the entire bowl, and when Red gave her the phone so she could speak to her mother and father she cried a little louder, but in the end her tears stopped flowing, and when she fell asleep, the phone cradled between her head and her shoulder like a favourite stuffed animal, she was smiling.

The chief of Baltimore Police called back one hour after Cooper had ordered him to arrest the man they knew as El Atél to report that the porter was nowhere to be found. They did have a name and a more detailed description, as well as a passport photo: El Atél, a.k.a. Blofeld, was known as Samnam Portel. He had been employed at the Lion's Den for three months, taking care of the roof terrace and serving customers there. Susan Moore and a SWAT team were on their way to his home address that very moment, hopefully to arrest him, or to find a lead to where he had gone.

Before Ressler could find out whether Moore had been successful, Finch's panel arrived, led by the same man who had interviewed him last year, a small, deceptively harmless-looking man called Nathaniel Havers.

"Well," he said to Liz as he left their little office, attempting a carefree smile and, by her reaction, failing so utterly he might as well left the room screaming, "wish me luck."

She gave him a far more convincing smile. "It'll be alright. I mean, you kind of lost your head yesterday, but you saved those kids, and we're very close to catching Blofeld, and as soon as we know on which boat the container with the drugs was loaded, we can trace it and chalk that up as a success as well. You'll be fine."

"I just hope they won't confine me to the Post Office. I'm no good here, I should be in the field."

"Well there you go. You're our only real field agent; I'm just a profiler and Louanne was Intelligence. They wouldn't cripple the Task Force by grounding you, would they? Not now we're so close to finding Blofeld."

"Guess not," he said faintly.

The Post Office had one official conference room. It was rarely used by the Task Force, as they usually gathered either on the computer bridge or in their offices. Nathaniel Havers, Rebecca Tron and Jack Stanford had occupied it for the purpose of their interview. The three of them formed the administrative board. They were accompanied by a retired field agent named Ben Creevey, whom they consulted on matters like decisions made by agents under pressure, professional conduct in the field, etc. Ressler despised all of them apart from Creevey. At least Creevey knew what it was like to hold a gun and shoot it, to be in danger and make life and death decisions. The other three had never killed. They'd never been in any real danger, they just judged the people who risked their lives for the ideals they stood for.

He did not allow his feelings to show, though. When Creevey showed him in, he regarded the two men and the woman sitting opposite of him with nothing but polite blankness, waiting for Havers to gesture for him to sit, and did so with as much grace as he could manage. As he looked at their table, he noticed that the envelope with the results of his medical examination he had given to Cooper earlier that day was now lying next to Havers' notebook.

The three faced him with similar impassive expressions, then Havers nodded and said with a thin smile, "We meet again, Agent Ressler. That, on its own, is not a positive development. Chances I meet one of you is very small, and then only once, if it all…You, I see in front of me twice in one year."

"Circumstances…"

"Are not favourable. The last time I spoke to you we discussed insubordination and excessive force. This time, we can add torture of a suspect."

"I needed him to talk fast."

"Why?" Rebecca Tron interjected. "The container and its contents had arrived. They were going nowhere."

"With children!" Ressler said. Damn it, she was a woman, she should be even more understanding of the horror of seeing children, small children, in such a dreadful state. "The contents were children."

"Nevertheless…"

"The subject who's responsible for trafficking these children is still at large," Ressler interrupted her. "I needed to know his name, find out where to find him."

Jack Stanford cleared his throat. "Is it not true, Agent Ressler, that you had been sent undercover to befriend the man you shot. Twice. In both legs?"

"Yes. But he refused to give me the name of his employer."

"Would it not have been possible to stay in character and use less drastic means to subtract that information at a later time?"

"At a later…there were children in that container!" He had to make a conscious effort not to scream at the man. "Dead children! How could I…"

"Do you mean to tell me," Stanford said, "that, upon laying eyes on those children, you lost your temper and consequently blew your cover and maimed the man you had spent a week befriending in order to get him to lead you to your suspect?"

Ressler was silent. He desperately tried to think of a way to tell them that what he had done had been necessary, had been right, but he simply couldn't form the right words.

"Agent Ressler." Havers took over again. His smile was almost pitying. "Director Cooper waived your tox screen for this month. This committee has decided we require you to take this test today. Agent Creevy will take it after this meeting has been concluded. We will take any medication you've been subscribed into consideration." He tapped a finger on the envelope.

For a few seconds, Ressler was frozen. Then he spoke through numb lips, "You know what the results of the test will be."

"Do we, Agent Ressler? We've received no memo that this undercover mission involved the necessity for the agent involved to be exposed to illegal substances."

"The Task Force…"

"Is required to keep to the rules, Agent Ressler, just like any department of the FBI. Either Director Cooper was unaware of the true nature of your mission, or he didn't mention it to us; in either case it seems this committee will request a meeting with him as well, or you lied to your supervisor concerning the nature of your mission. You cannot have been ignorant of it. And that poses the question: who are you working for, Agent Ressler? The FBI? Or Reddington?

_WHAT? _"I don't work for Reddington!" His voice went up and cracked like a teenager's at that outrageous statement. "You can't be serious! I've hunted him down all over the world—I spent most of my career chasing after him!"

"And yet you never caught him."

"I was selected for this Task Force because of my history chasing Reddington," Ressler hissed. "I didn't apply, I didn't even know about it! Do you mean to say that I somehow manipulated Diane Fowler and Harold Cooper into finding me in, where was I at the time? Canada? and recruit me for the Post Office? That is absurd."

"You claim to be his enemy. However, he saved your life twice. And you went to him for help when your fiancée was killed by Mako Tanida—we know this."

"You know _nothing_." Ressler spat. His head was pounding again, and his right hand throbbed painfully as he tried to ball it into a fist. "Prove it. Prove it wasn't Bobby Jonica who put me on the wrong path to cover his own deeds. You can't, because that is the truth, not this Reddington theory. Your allegations are preposterous."

Havers shrugged delicately. "That is exactly the kind of thing we are aiming to get clarified. That, and whether you are suitable to remain part of this task force, and an agent of the FBI. Consider yourself under investigation. In the meantime you are suspended with full pay, awaiting the result of this screening. Please hand in your badge and gun."

Ressler stared at him, stunned. "But…the case…" he stammered. "It's imperative that…"

"Your colleagues can handle the rest of this investigation," Standord cut him off. "After all, there is no need for you to handle the investigation personally as your main purpose was to remain undercover until the subject was caught. Your gun and badge, please. Agent Creevey will take your tox screen now."

Slowly, Ressler rose, took his gun out of its holster and unclipped his badge, and put them on the table in front of Nathaniel Havers. He was satisfied to see that his hand was steady. "You're making a mistake," he said calmly—or at least he sounded calm. "I have nothing to hide. All you're doing is heightening the risk of our suspect getting away."

"It's a risk you force us to take, Agent Ressler." _Bullshit_. "Once we've finished our investigation, we will notify Director Cooper. He will, in turn, let you know whether we expect to see you at another hearing, whether you're cleared, or…" He trailed off. "You're dismissed. Good day, Agent Ressler."

Seething, Ressler followed Agent Creevey to the bathroom, snatched the cup out of his hand and peed in it in a bathroom stall. He was so angry he had to take a few deep breaths to stop his hands from shaking so he could actually aim into the cup.

How long did detectable traces of methamphetamine or cocaine stay in your system again? And in how much trouble exactly would he be if they found any? He had a very good excuse to have been using drugs, but would the board accept it as valid now they had decided he was not only mentally unstable but in league with the criminal he'd spent his entire career trying to bring down?

When he came out of the stall and washed his hands, Agent Creevey leaned against the wall, holding the case for the cup in front of him like a collecting-box.

"Agent Ressler, a word of advice."

Ressler dried his hands. It was all he could do not to throw the cup of piss into the man's face. Instead he carefully placed it in the case and turned to Creevey with his eyebrows raised.

"I know it must be hard to leave a case like this. But I can't stress enough that you must NOT interfere. If you're charged with insubordination during this investigation, you're finished. Do not give in to the temptation to get involved until you're cleared."

"And what are the chances of that?" Ressler asked tonelessly. "I know I fucked up this time, but apparently that's not the real reason for this investigation."

Creevey shrugged. "Are you working for Reddington?"

No matter how many times he heard it, it didn't become any less ridiculous or insulting. "No."

"Then you'll probable be reprimanded, cautioned to be more careful in the future and ordered to return to duty ASAP." He closed the case. "Rely on your team. Your position should become better when the case is closed successfully."

Ressler grunted. Chances of success weren't exactly soaring if they took out one third of the task force. Too angry to appreciate Creevey's words, he turned around and headed for his office to get his coat.

Just as Ressler entered the office, Lizzie put down the phone with a growl of frustration. She had been able to find out onto which boat container 234-52872-391 had been loaded, but for some reason it proved to be impossible to find out where that boat was now. No one knew, no one cared, and no one wanted to call her back. She had been given a name and a phone number, but the person on the other end of the line had told her he was only a substitute, and that she should try calling back tomorrow.

She was glad to see Ressler, if only because his return saved her from calling someone else. At first glance she thought he was fine—sure, he was pale, but that was to be expected after last night, and she already breathed a sigh of relief, but then he sat down in his chair opposite of her, and his face was so tight it was disturbing even for him.

"What…what happened?" she asked, when he just kept sitting there, radiating cold fury and only barely contained violence. "What did they say?"

He looked up at her, and his eyes were _livid_. "I," he grated out, "am being suspended until further notice."

"WHAT? Why?" But she knew why, and so did he. He had reported her once, for giving up her gun in a hostage situation. She had met Havers as well. It all had to do with professional conduct. She had hated Ressler for throwing her under the bus, but he had been right about one thing: she had broken the rules. That didn't mean she had forgiven him for reporting her; she still thought it had been a terribly shitty thing to do. And this time Ressler had screwed up as well, worse than she had, perhaps. You never used your fire arm when it wasn't strictly necessary—when the FBI used a gun, they shot to kill. You didn't use excessive force. And, she gathered, you didn't have a total mental meltdown in public, not without severe consequences.

Still, even if she was petty enough to feel his investigation by the board was justified, she didn't understand why they would completely take him out of the field. He could still do research, and they needed every man and woman on the team they had. Ok, shooting a suspect and blowing your cover was bad, but it had happened before. They were only human, after all, and subjected to a lot of stress. But to take him off the task force entirely…

"Apparently," Ressler said slowly, "I am under suspicion of committing treason and working together with Reddington."

Lizzie stared at him. Then she laughed, but stopped laughing as he faced her with that disturbing bloodless mask of rage. "You're not joking."

"No."

"They think you've gone over to Red."

"Yes."

"That's…" despite herself, she had to laugh again. "That's preposterous! That's just…surely they can't be serious?"

"Oh, they're serious. There'll be an investigation, and they'll probably come to my house and…" and then he became even whiter, and whispered, "Fuck."

"What?"

"Nothing." Whatever 'Nothing' was, it was scaring him shitless. "I need to…I have to go home."

"Shall I take you? I have to pack for Baltimore anyway. Or maybe Louanne could take you."

"Louanne? You mean Louanne Plant? That was her, this morning?"

Dear god, but he was out of it. "Yes," Lizzie said. "She told me you worked with her before."

He nodded, uncaring, and fell silent again.

"Let me take you home," Lizzie said.

She said goodbye to Louanne and set a time to pick her up so they could drive to Baltimore the next morning. Outside, it had started to rain. Ressler sat next to her in the car, following the windshield wipers with his eyes as they went back and forth.

"Are you alright?" she asked gingerly.

Ressler took a long moment to reply. "No," he finally murmured. "No, I don't think so." His voice was very soft and very low. "I'm so mad I'm surprised I'm still able to communicate at all." He smiled entirely without humour. "I busted up my hand one day early. God, I want to hit something."

"It'll be ok. You'll see. They don't have anything on you—not if they think you're working for Red. That's nonsense. Right?"

"Right," Ressler whispered. "They have nothing."


	21. Chapter 21

The head.

Christ, the head, Tanida's fucking _head_. Why had he not reported Reddington's gruesome little present the moment he received it? Why had he spent the evening looking at it, mesmerized by the mere fact of its existence: a box holding a head on his table, instead of calling it in and thereby, by delaying, making it harder and harder for him to do so, until it was impossible altogether? What on earth had possessed him to wait, one night, then two, and then a week, until handing it over to the FBI would come with the condemning question why he had not done so sooner? Why had he accepted the fucking box in the first place?

And what was he going to do with the head now?

Ressler wasn't all that worried about the three handguns and the automatic assault rifle he kept locked away in a drawer; he had a licence for all of them, apart, perhaps, for the automatic as carrying an automatic fire arm was, technically, prohibited. He could explain the guns.

He could not explain Mako Tanido's head, still tucked away in his second freezer—which he had bought, two days after accepting the head, especially for that purpose—beneath a family pack of frozen vegetables in a plastic bag like some kind of morbid cauliflower.

If the board would deem it necessary to search his house, say, for drugs, they would find the head, and if they found the head, he wouldn't just be fired. He would go to prison. And he wouldn't last a month in prison, not if the inmates found out he was FBI. He had to get rid of it.

But how?

He wasn't a criminal, damn it! Hadn't he proven that abundantly clearly over the last week? He didn't know how to make plans to get rid of damning evidence. He was just an idiot who happened to have a severed head stored in his freezer because he hadn't known what else to do with it.

His first impulse was to take it out of the house and bury it somewhere, but whenever he took the head out of the freezer with the intent to put it into a discreet backpack he imagined someone from the Bureau or the Board walking up to him and asking whether he could have a look into his bag and encounter Tanida's frozen smile. Another option was burying it, but he woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare in which a dog dug the head up again and all evidence lead back to him.

He thought about getting acid and dissolving the head, but how could he possibly explain why he needed to buy acid and a plastic bucket if anyone noticed, and asked him?

He reasoned he might simply take the head and throw it into the river somewhere, but what if he were under surveillance? He knew Havers' people were keeping an eye on him; not all the time, but there was an unfamiliar black car parked in the street he was convinced was occupied by people spying on him.

He deliberated burning the head, but he didn't have a hearth in his apartment, and so would have to take it outside as well and that, he'd decided, was not an option.

He didn't dare take the head out of his house nor do anything that might cast suspicion on him. And so he did nothing, and grew ever more anxious.

Being in quite a lot of pain didn't help. He took aspirin for his ribs and his hand, but he had a persistent headache that simply wouldn't go away and only got worse the more worked up he became, and for the first time since he'd played Aaron Stone he found himself craving a hit, not for the rush but for the clarity of mind it would bring. There was no way he could get his hands on a gram of cocaine, though. And he could not think of a way to get out of this mess.

For three days, he worked himself up into a frenzy of fear and panic and paralyzing indecision, until he was quite literally sick with it and spent hours on end lying on the couch, exhausted and delirious with stress, withdrawal symptoms and pain medication, dreaming up worst case scenarios while desperately trying to find a solution for this gruesomely surreal problem.

He could grind the head down to a pulp and dispose of it with the rest of his garbage.

("Agent Ressler, could you explain the presence of human bone fragments in this bag of waste we confiscated?")

He could bash it to pieces and flush it down the toilet.

("Agent Ressler, could you explain to me how these human bone fragments came to be in your toilet when we were searching the place for cocaine?")

He could buy a really big pot and a plant and put Tanida's skull into the pot below the roots of the plant.

("Agent Ressler, could you clarify why there is a human skull under this gardenia?")

He could boil the meat off the skull and keep the skull like a macabre press papier, and simply say he was eccentric and had bought it at a junkyard sale years ago.

("Agent Ressler, would you care to explain how this skull, which has the dna of Mako Tanida, has come to be sitting on this stack of bills?")

He could hack a piece out of the wall, hide the head inside and cover it all up again.

He could hide it, somewhere.

He could cook the head, invite people over and serve it to them with rice, glazed carrots and red wine sauce.

By the time he got to that last option, he covered his face with his hands, thinking he might really be losing his mind, and it was at this point that someone rang his doorbell. Immediately, his heart was in his throat. It took him a moment to force his body to obey his mental commands to get up and answer the door.

A skinny blonde preteen girl was on his doorstep. It was raining—it hadn't really stopped raining since Liz had dropped him off, and the girl was soaking wet. She protectively cradled a large rucksack to her chest.

Ressler stared at her.

She stared back at him.

"Yes?" he asked, after several seconds.

She swallowed. "I…I'm sorry but…could I please come inside for a moment? Until it stops pouring? My cookies are all turning into mush!"

Ressler's muddled cranium gave a painful throb as the surrealism went up another notch. He shook himself. _Cookies. _He noticed a badge on her coat. _She's a girl scout. Jesus Christ. Of all people, she chooses me._

He didn't want this kid in his house, but hell, she looked like a bedraggled cat, so he stood back from the door and muttered, "Yeah, sure. Of course. Come in."

The girl skipped inside, thanking him, and he closed the door behind her, reminding himself not to lock it behind her back as he was used to in order not to creep her out. When he glanced outside, he noticed the black car again. It was parked diagonally from his house across the street.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" he asked mechanically, as the girl placed her backpack on the floor and started unbuttoning her sodden coat.

She laughed. "It's Friday. I always have the Friday afternoon off. I sold seven packs of cookies already. Shouldn't you be at work? Are you sick?"

Ressler blinked dry eyes. He felt as if he were in a Dali picture, or a Kafka story; nothing made any sense, least of all this conversation. "Something like that," he said weakly.

"That's good. I didn't want to have to come back. Mom will get suspicious if I keep baking cookies. Here, I'm supposed to give you this. You are Donald Ressler, aren't you? Not someone else?"

He stared uncomprehending at the small white envelope she held out to him. "No. I'm Don Ressler." She shook the envelope at him and he took it. Opened it. Read the note inside.

_**Some time ago you received a gift from me. If you still have it and would like to be rid of it, give it to Abby here. Please ensure she does not know what she is carrying. When my gift has returned safely, you will receive an Ikea folder.**_

_**R.**_

Ressler read the note five times.

"Hey mister," the girl said, "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," he murmured. "Fine." His head was spinning. Could he do this? Use this girl to cover up for his own stupidity, had he really sunk that low? But if he didn't, would he get another chance to solve this whole mess himself? Would he ever be able to forgive himself if that girl, Abby, ever found out what she would be carrying? And did he really want to be in Reddington's debt for one more thing? No. No! But could he afford to refuse?

Abby, in the meantime, had opened her backpack, taken out a single box of cookies, and was now tugging out a half-inflated beach ball. "You're supposed to give me something," she said, grinning conspiratorially. She let out the air of the ball and folded it up so it would fit into her coat pocket.

"Yes," he said faintly. He made his decision. "Yes. Wait here."

He gave the girl a towel so she could dry her hair, went into his back room, put the head into a second, opaque bag, wrapped it up in old newspapers and put the whole of it into a pillow case, which he secured with half a roll of industrial tape. Then he took Abby's backpack and put the head inside of it.

"Where are you taking this?" he asked through cold lips. He didn't think he'd ever hated himself this much before.

"I'm not supposed to say. Not far. It's a secret!" She smiled, showing braces. She handed him the damp box of cookies. "You can have these, if you want. They're five dollars."

Ressler paid her. "You can't unwrap what I've just given you," he said hoarsely.

She snorted. "Of course not. I have an agreement." She studied him for a moment. "Hey Mr. Ressler? I think you should really go to bed. You don't look so good."

_Oh Christ, I can't do this, I can't let this girl walk around with fucking Mako Tanida's head…___

But the next moment she remarked that the rain had lessened, and the moment after that she had done up her coat again, shrugged the backpack onto her back, opened the door and stepped outside. "Look! It's almost stopped. I can see a large patch of blue over there."

"Yes," Ressler said numbly. "It's cold, though. Don't stay outside in your wet coat for too long."

She smiled. "I'm all out of cookies anyway. See you, Mr. Ressler. Get well soon!" With a small wave, she skipped away. The black car remained where it was.

Ressler went back inside and sank down on the couch, holding his head in his shaking hands and wondering if he could die of self-loathing.

But when his mailbox clapped not ten minutes later and he stumbled into the hall in a haze to find an Ikea folder on his doormat, his relief was so overwhelming he didn't notice he had fallen to his knees until his ribs let him know in no uncertain terms that they did not appreciate him huddling on the floor like this. It took him a while to get up, though. It was as if all his strength had drained out of him—or maybe that was because he had hardly eaten anything for two days, hadn't slept apart from those short periods of nightmare-riddled unconsciousness, and was generally, both physically and mentally, at the end of his rope. But once he made it to his feet, he went into the kitchen where he burned Reddington's note, made himself a bowl of Campbell soup and a sandwich, and after he had scarfed that down, stumbled into his bedroom and slept for eighteen hours straight.

The head, that one bit that inexorably linked him to Reddington, was gone.

The rest of the investigation was peanuts compared to that.

While Ressler was going through his own little chemically-dependent and mentally induced hell, Liz spent most of her time interrogating people. Claus, again, but he knew nothing, and being in the same room with him made her feel dirty. She was happy knowing that he would spend the coming years in jail.

She interviewed Boscoe, who was still recuperating in a well-guarded hospital room, and learned that he had not known that Blofeld was the man he knew as Portel. El Atél had appointed Portel to him as the porter to Outside, but when she told him that they were the same man, Boscoe turned a sickly shade of green and begged her to protect his wife and son. He lent his full cooperation, not terrified to go to jail, but to leave Anasenko and Jamie to Blofeld's not so tender mercy.

"I know what he did to Skinny," he whispered. "I thought he would kill him, but I know what he did to him. I don't want Ana to end up that way."

Louanne got the woman and the child to a safehouse. Blofeld, however, seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

One lead led to the other, though, and they kept finding more people who had come into contact with him. They tracked Blofeld to Washington, where he had changed identity again. They lost him there, and spent four days trying to figure out where he could have gone. The resulting arrests they made were interesting: a hitman who, after being manipulated long enough by Louanne, let it drop that he had worked for Blofeld, who he knew as 'Malroy'; an arms dealer who knew him as Malroy as well, and identified him as a drug lord in Chicago. Another thug, arrested after the hitman spilled the beans, pointed to Chicago as well. Lizzie sighed, bought a new blouse and had her clothes cleaned at the hotel, and took a plane to Chicago.

It was odd to be working with Louanne. She was likable enough, but she'd got used to Ressler, and Louanne wasn't Ressler. As a matter of fact, she was as unlike Ressler as was humanly possible. Her mind was like a razor: fast, cutting, sharp. Her sense of humour was the same and she made Lizzie almost choke on a drink with laughter several times. But sometimes that wit could be a little cruel, she could be evasive and calculating at times, was easily distracted by details, and strangely reluctant to draw, let alone use, her gun.

Lizzie figured she should be pleased not to have someone quite as trigger-happy as Ressler at her side, but the truth was that she felt safer with him having her six than Louanne. Liz was a profiler, not a field agent, and neither was Louanne; they could both hit a target as well as anyone graduating from Quantico, but they weren't specifically trained to shoot at people. Louanne may be smarter, more talkative and funnier than Ressler, but she was only 5'3", and they one time failed to catch a suspect because the man simply bowled the two of them over and made a run for it. Liz didn't blame Louanne—how could she, she hadn't been able to stop the man herself, but as she sat in bed nursing her bruises that night, she couldn't help wishing her partner had been male, 6 foot tall, had the determination and stamina of a pit-bull and took an intense pleasure in punching people in the face.

And, of course, Lizzie thought that same night, she had never had, and never intended to have sex with Louanne.

Not that Ressler would have crawled into bed with her during a chase like this one. He'd be too obsessively focused on bringing Blofeld down. But things had changed between the two of them, more than she had thought they had, and she only realized just how much now she was partnered to someone else.

Reddington spent most of the week after the container's arrival either airborne in his private jet, or on the road in a rental. First he delivered Shukran to her parents, receiving valuable information about a possible associate of Berlin's in return. He staid with the Sheik for one day, then flew back to America and, upon learning about the investigation into Ressler by the administrative board from sweet Lizzie, arranged for a quick pickup of any gifts the moron hadn't disposed of—such as a head, or a head in a box.

By the time Dembe put the cold backpack into the trunk and handed a boy a stack of Ikea folders to put into the mailbox of all residents of that street, he was already on the phone with Andrea Dionalotti, who was trying to get his funds cleared. That night he booked his usual room in the Sherridan, only to find an envelope waiting for him containing a handwritten letter on plain off-white stationary.

_**Mr. Reddington,**_

_**I thank you for your consideration concerning my brother. I do, however, have questions.**_

_**Kindly accept my invitation for a meeting at a place and time of your earliest convenience. If you accept, please leave your reply on this note and return it to your room's pigeon hole.**_

The note was not signed, but a single slim sewing needle was stuck through the paper.

Red smiled, intrigued.

_A needle, huh? She must have appreciated the flowers and the coffin. _Meeting this woman was playing with fire, though. She might kill him as easily as she might talk to him—but then she had left it to him to pick the place and a date, which showed some goodwill. And he desperately wanted to meet her.

As she was based in Chicago, he decided to make a gentlemanly offer in return, and proposed a dinner date in his favourite restaurant there, two days hence, on Saturday.

That Saturday, when Red made his way to Chicago, Ressler decided that if he wasn't allowed to be productive, he might just as well leave Washington altogether and stay at his cabin in Prince George's County instead. He hadn't been there in ages, only a couple of days last summer and then only to have it renovated.

Even though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders now Tanida's head was gone, he wasn't comfortable at home for so long. At first he tried to think of it as a holiday, and used his time to do some repairs in the house, carry out some maintenance, but apart from the fact that painting walls was a rather unpleasant business when one was bruised all over, doing odd jobs wasn't his kind of thing. He didn't find it relaxing, and he wasn't very good at it, either. Ressler hadn't been away from the office this long in years, and the black car across the street was making him edgy. Unable, because of his ribs, to do more than take long walks to burn off excess energy, he quickly became tired of this forced vacation. Not that he hit the streets often; all he seemed to do was sleep, nowadays. He was continuously tired. Maybe the smell of paint drugged him. In the end he sent Cooper a text that he was going to his cabin and that he would hand in the key to his house to Cooper in case the Board wanted to search it, but that he was leaving and that anyone who wanted to talk to him could reach him on his phone or at the cabin.

He received a rather dry reply back, in which Cooper told him that he hoped to welcome Ressler back into his team ASAP, but that he saw no reason for him to stay cooped up in the city.

Ressler packed his bags, tossed them in the back of the SUV and drove off.

The black car followed him. He was fine with that.

At a quarter to eight, Raymond Reddington walked into the Olive d'Or, impeccably dressed and pleasantly anticipative of what the evening would bring.

He greeted the Maitre d', whom he knew personally, was led to a table at the window and, when he said he was expecting company, left to himself with the promise that someone would come and take his order for a drink in a few minutes.

Red liked the Olive d'Or, even if he had only visited the place three or four times over the past ten years. The food was excellent, the service respectful yet convivial, and the building the restaurant was located in was a beautiful example of how tasteful faux-Art Nouveau could be. He especially liked the windows, all painted glass images of women from works by Alphonse Mucha. They watched the diners with their secretive little smiles, as if they had put something in the food—some delicate poison, perhaps?—and were waiting to see the results. Red could appreciate images like these.

Lizzie called him just as he took his phone out of his pocket to put it on silent mode. He checked his watch; he still had a few minutes. He answered the phone.

"Lizzie! I haven't heard from you in the longest time; how are you?"

He almost fell from his chair in surprise when she simply answered him instead of firing questions or accusations at him. "I'm tired is how I am. I've been following Blofeld all over the place."

"Where are you now?""

She sighed. "Chicago."

He smirked. "What a coincidence. So am I!"

"Really?" For once, she didn't sound doubtful. He might even think she sounded glad. "What are you doing here? Have you found him?"

"No. Why should I do your job for you? What are the chances he is here still?"

Another sigh, or maybe a yawn. "I don't know. This morning I was convinced he had to be here, but after today...I'm not sure. Why? Do you have any leads?"

"I'm just in town to have dinner with a dark and mysterious lady," Red said. "Blofeld is yours now, remember?"

She grumbled something. It sounded like something with the name 'Ressler' in it.

"He still isn't back on active duty?" Red asked.

"Red, they won't even let him enter the building. Cooper all but made me sign a waiver not to contact him. He's on administrative leave, and that is not half as nice as it sounds."

That was odd. Most of the time when someone of the FBI or CIA screwed up in public, they'd get a private talking-to, an in-organizational dressing-down, a few weeks of punitive desk duty and that was that. Now if Ressler had _killed _Boscoe, or accidentally shot one of the children in the container he could understand why they wouldn't want him back at the Post Office. But he hadn't, he'd just exploded, with some moderately good reason, even, and he had done his best to minimize the damage by providing the FBI with a face and a name. Why were Havers and his team so tenacious? Had Ressler managed to screw up even worse without Red's knowledge?

He frowned. Dear god, wasn't the man able to get out of _any _bad situation without his help? First the head and now this. He wasn't Lizzie; helping Lizzie further her career while grooming her for his own use felt good. Fulfilling. He had hurt her very badly but he would like to think she was happier now, and more importantly: safer. Having to rescue Ressler like he was the world's most unattractive damsel in distress was beginning to grate a little. He didn't have the _time _to waste on Ressler. "I'm sure he'll be back before you know it," he said. "And I'm sure you'll find Blofeld in due course. Perhaps you should take a closer look at the buildings his people operate from. They might tell you something. Let me know if you're still in Chicago tomorrow. We could have lunch, somewhere."

"Red, I'm hunting a criminal mastermind. I don't have time to do lunches."

"You have to eat, don't you? Call me." He hung up, caught a waiter's attention and ordered a prosecco. As he followed the waiter with his eyes, studying the people coming in, he noticed movement close by and looked back at his table. A diminutive Asian woman had approached from the back of the restaurant and was in the process of pulling back the chair opposite of him. Red hastily got to his feet and assisted her. "Allow me."

"Thank you," the woman said. She sat, keeping her clutch on her lap and her hands demurely below the table. She was small, with a rather beautiful milk-white face, a dainty pink mouth, slanted eyes traced with kohl and long black hair done up in an intricate coif. Her high-necked dress was simple, but the pale blue fabric was richly embroidered with gray, pink, white and light blue flowers and butterflies. "You are Raymond Reddington?" Her voice was soft and precise, with a trace of palatal r confusion.

"Yes." He wondered if the tiny woman was Lin Yin herself, or whether she had sent a handmaiden. Then he studied the accessories sticking out of her hair; at first he'd thought they were ivory sticks, but he now noticed that they were shaped like needles, with a small round jewel twinkling in the eyes. "Xian Lin Yin? I am honoured you chose to attend this meeting yourself."

She smiled, the expression like a doll's; perfect, sweet, cold as porcelain. "I had questions," she said. "I could let others ask them, but what were I to do with the answers if it were not you who gave them to me? They did not present me my brother's corpse in a cedar wood coffin."

Red refrained from answering as the waiter returned with his prosecco and the menus. Lin Yin ordered a brandy on the rocks. She opened her menu, but did not look at it, keeping her eyes on Red instead. He found it hard to return her gaze; her eyes were like black glass: shiny and dead. The whole woman was like that, almost lifeless, from her perfect white face to her slender fingers. She was not at all unattractive, but she made him feel slightly nervous. Red left his glass where it stood, deciding it would be more polite to wait until she had her drink as well. He raised his hands. "Ask."

"You know who I am. Yet you sent me my brother's body along with a note signed in your own name. Not many people would dare to do so."

"I figured you would see my action for what it was: a desire to pay you respect by paying the last respects to your brother."

"You sent me the dead body of my brother."

Ah. So his role in Shuo's murder confused her. He should have been clearer in his note. "I was not the one who killed him."

"I gathered that." Again that cold, perfect smile. "You would not have signed your name if you had. What is unclear to me, is how you got hold of his body."

"I know the man who killed him," Red said.

"Who is he?"

"No one particularly interesting. Your brother attacked him. He killed him in self-defense. Shuo's death w—"

"Don't speak his name," Lin Yin hissed, her thin eyes narrowed.

Red calmly finished his sentence, "...your brother's death was neither his intention nor his responsibility."

"This man cut open my brother's throat from ear to ear, and it was not his intention to kill him?"

Red shrugged. "Like I said. Your brother attacked him. I was impressed he survived at all."

The snarl left her face. "This is true. My brother was an excellent martial artist. I want to know who bested him."

"Unfortunately," Red smiled apologetically, "I am unwilling to tell you."

"Why?"

"Because he is one of my people, and I look out for my own. Suffice to say, he did not mean to kill your brother, and was provoked into action by your brother himself." He formed a steeple with his fingers. "I happen to know that not all was well in the city of Chicago, not when it came to the relationship between you and your brother."

"That is correct," she said, not impressed by his knowledge. "He had been a thorn in my side for several years. In all truth I must confess that even though I do mourn his death, I do not lament his absence. However, he was my brother and I would not let his death go unpunished." She smiled thinly. "I have a reputation to uphold."

"Ah," Red smiled, "But I think I can help you there. You see, there was a particular reason why your brother was in Baltimore."

The waiter returned with Lin Yin's brandy. Red ordered Salmon a la Fabricio, Lin Yin a plain Spaghetti Bolognaise. She waited until he had left, then raised her glass; Red clinked his against it.

"Speak," she said.

"Have you ever heard about a man with the nickname Blofeld?"

During his forced leave, Ressler called Lizzie twice, both times from a different phone. The first time she wasn't able to answer, and he left her a voice message asking how she was doing, whether she was any closer to Blofeld, whether she'd found the drug shipment yet and if she knew whether the Board had come to a decision yet. "I know I'm not supposed to contact you until I'm cleared," he ended his voicemail, "but please get back to me. I'm going stir-crazy without anything to do. I've already repainted all my rooms. If I see one more paintbrush I'll break open that fucking surveillance car and shove it into the bastard's mouth. Anyway. Be careful out there."

Breaking this rule must have been difficult for him, she thought, smiling to herself. She deleted the message and called him back on his house extension the next day, but apparently he wasn't home because he did not pick up. As his house might be watched and searched, she didn't leave a message.

The second time he called her, it was four days later—ten days after Havers had sent Ressler home—and Lizzie and Louanne had just arrived in Indianapolis. He called her while she was sorting through her laundry (the Post Office's main expenses were laundry costs, at the moment), and she felt a little surge of…something almost like homesickness when she heard his inflectionless voice.

"Hey," she said, and "Hey," he replied. She heard music in the background, people talking. "How are you?"

"Fine," he said. He would probably be fine with a hatchet stuck in his head. "You?"

"Fine, too. Tired. We got a lead to Indianapolis, so…that's where we're now."

"Indianapolis?"

"We thought he might be in Chicago first, but…I'm getting the feeling we're pretty close on his heels, but he's still at large. We'll get him, though." She sat down amidst the modest heaps of clean and dirty clothes on the bed. "Have you heard anything from Cooper yet?"

"No. Well, apparently they searched my house a couple of days ago. Havers is taking his time." And softer, as an afterthought, "I hope they didn't damage my freshly painted walls."

That made her laugh. As an echo, laughter sounded through the receiver. "Where are you? At St. Vincent's?"

"No, I've moved to my cabin for the time being. I'm at a café. It's nice; I get to be social, and we play darts. I've never been so good at darts before. And they play poker every other night here." There was an unspoken desperation in those words.

_Poor thing, _Lizzie thought, _no one to hunt down or beat up. He must be so bored! _"Sounds like you're having a better time than me," she said, grinning.

Ressler snorted. "I'd swap with you in a second. I'm going crazy in here." He fell silent.

Lizzie asked what his phone number for the cabin was, and he gave it to her. She noted it down on a piece of paper. Once she had, she paused for a few seconds, then said, "I miss you, you know."

"Yeah? How's working with Louanne?"

_I miss you too, Liz._ She rolled her eyes, but wasn't really surprised. Even if he did miss her, and she wasn't at all certain that he did, he would never admit it. "It's ok. She's funny."

"Yes," Ressler said coldly. "She is, isn't she?" One day she was going to find out why they disliked one another so much. "I've got to go. Good luck. And be careful."

"Will do. See you."

"Yeah," Ressler sighed. "Soon, hopefully."

Three days later, Liz and Louanne were called back to Chicago.

They met Detective Arthur Vance of the Chicago PD at the Cook County Morgue, and he led them inside.

"The victim was found yesterday evening at 11 pm," Vance said. They had worked with him during their fox hunt in Chicago the previous week. He was a decent man, overworked but competent. At the moment, a look of satisfaction relaxed his weary features. "He was discovered lying in an open grave in the Forest Home Cemetery."

Louanne raised an eyebrow. "In an open grave? That's apt."

"And you're certain it's Blofeld?" Liz asked.

Vance shrugged one shoulder. "All I have is that blown up passport picture you gave me. No, I'm not certain, but I think he is, and…the way he was killed, it's…interesting."

He showed his badge to a guard in a cubicle behind a security entrance, and they were buzzed in. Vance opened the first door on the left, where a pathologist was scribbling something down on a clipboard. A body covered up with a thin sheet was lying on the slab next to him.

"Hello, Frank," Vance greeted the pathologist. "Found anything interesting?"

"I've completed the autopsy, if that's what you mean,' Frank replied without looking up from his notes. Dark shadows beneath his eyes explained his somewhat sour tone. "All I need is a name and then I'll officially know everything about this guy."

"We might be able to help you with that," Louanne said, causing him to glance up sharply. "Special agents Plant and Keen."

The man smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware Art brought visitors." He tucked his clipboard beneath his arm, took off the rubber glove on his right hand and shook their hands. "I'm Frank Cline. I've been rummaging around in our John Doe here since two am this morning, so please excuse my less than charming appearance."

He moved to the slab and pulled away the sheet to show the man's face.

Lizzie eagerly studied the victim's face. No matter how ethically wrong it may be, she couldn't help smiling widely at the sight of the once-tan, now grayish face of the corpse. It was definitely the same face as the one she'd studied so often on the passport photo. She glanced up and met Louanne's eyes. Louanne nodded, eyes wide and bright.

"Yes," Lizzie said. With some effort she managed to tune down on the grin. "This definitely is the man we know as Blofeld, a.k.a. Portel, a.k.a. Malroy, a.k.a. Beliykot."

"I only need one name," Frank said.

"We don't know his birth name," Louanne said. "You took prints, I take it?"

"Of course. I've already sent them on to the police."

"Detective Vance said the way he died was interesting," Lizzie said. "Could you explain what he meant by that?"

In reaction, Frank pulled the sheet down a little further, baring the corpse's neck. A thin line of puncture marks, so closely together they formed a single pink scar, ran from one side of his throat to the other, neatly crossing his larynx.

"Is that a cut?"

"No," the pathologist said. "This scar was formed by twenty-seven needles stuck into his throat up to the eyelet." He picked up a file from a desk in the corner and took out several pictures showing the silvery line of needles sticking out of Blofeld's throat before extraction. "As far as I can determine, he was struck on the head, injected with a paralytic, and then used as a pin cushion. Whoever killed him simply kept sticking needles into his neck until he suffocated."

"Suffocated!?" Lizzie exclaimed. "You mean they closed off his windpipe with these needles?" She shuddered at the thought.

"Correct. They were inserted very, very closely together, especially around the trachea."

Louanne paled. "And you think he was conscious while they did this?"

"I have no way to tell exactly, but as this is his cause of death, I would expect that he was aware of it, yes."

"That's rather gruesome."

"Depending on where they started, yes. And horribly painful. And slow."

"Do you still have those needles?" Lizzie asked. Frank went back to his desk and gave her a small round plastic box containing a handful of needles. They were slightly longer than any needle she had ever used for sewing, but did not seem different in any other way. She opened the box and fished one out.

"I've studied a couple under the microscope," Frank said. "Couldn't find anything noteworthy. They're common gold eye embroidery needles. You can buy them at most supermarkets and stores. I couldn't find any prints, but even if they had any, the surface is so small, and they were imbedded in his throat so deeply that they wouldn't have yielded a complete print."

Lizzie put the needle back, closed the lid of the box and gave it back to Frank. "I think we know who is responsible for Blofeld's death."

"We do?" Louanne asked. Then she clacked her tongue and said, "Shuo."

"Who?" Lance asked, confused. He only knew the FBI wanted to catch a man the Chicago PD knew as Malroy, and very little of what had happened before.

Lizzie shook her head. "As you know, we've been trying to find this man for some weeks now. Two weeks ago, another agent went undercover to get involved with a couple of men who were trying to win Malroy's favour. One of those men was Xian Shuo. Shuo tried to kill the agent, do away with the competition. Instead, he ended up with his throat cut and bled to death." She gestured at Blofeld's body. "Xian Shuo has a sister. She is based here in Chicago. You may know her as Lin Yin. She leads a gang here, the Cult of the Needle. I've forgotten what it was in Chinese. Have you ever heard of her?"

This to Art Vance, who looked doubtful. "Maybe," he said slowly. "We have several Chinese and Japanese gangs, but they keep to themselves, most of the time. However, if this Lin Yin feels Blofeld is ultimately responsible for her brother's death…she sounds like the perfect candidate. What with the needles and all."

"Yes," Lizzie mused. "Is there any way we can find out where she lives so we can arrest her?"

"That shouldn't be a problem," the detective said with a smile.

When Lizzie called him to tell him that Blofeld was dead and found, her news made Red feel so charitable he employed one of his trusted 'tailers' to find out about the general habits of Nathaniel Havers. Even though the Post Office (unsurprisingly) functioned perfectly well without Ressler, it was clear that Lizzie hoped he would return to the Task Force soon, and Mr. Havers did not seem inclined to let that happen in the near future. If only for curiosity's sake, Red wanted to have a chat with him.

And so, three weeks after Nathaniel Havers had led his little administrative board into the Post Office, and four days after Blofeld's death, Raymond Reddington walked into the dining room of the Hilton in Washington, inclined his head at the two large men sitting two tables away from Havers, and sat down at Havers' table.

Havers looked up at him from his quinoa salad. A jolt went through him, but he immediately controlled himself and raised an eyebrow when Red placed his hat on the table.

"Mr. Reddington," he said.

"Yes," Red confirmed.

"To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"Does it truly come as such a surprise?" Red asked. "You're holding one of my agents an administrative prisoner."

Havers ate a spoonful of salad. "You're talking about Donald Ressler."

"Yes. I'd like him back on the team."

"We can't always get what we want," Havers said dryly.

Now that would not do at all. "Tell me, Mr…" He leaned over and pretended to study the man's briefcase, "Havers. That would be Nathaniel Havers, I take it? Do you really want to antagonise me?"

Havers steadily met his eyes. "Are you threatening me?"

"We're sitting in the dining room of the Hilton; your body guards," he waved at them, "are keeping me under shot—somewhat obviously, I might add—and one look of you would have me either arrested, killed or otherwise indisposed." He paused. "Yes, I am threatening you, but not personally."

A waitress walked by, asked Havers, "Are you alright, sir?" and Red took the opportunity to order a cup of coffee. The woman glanced at Havers, who inclined his head; she moved off.

"Now, where was I?" Red mused.

"You were threatening me in an impersonal way," Havers said.

Red appreciated his sense of humour. Him having one might make things easier—or harder. Men with an appreciation for dry humour were often smart (Ressler, he couldn't help thinking, had no sense of humour whatsoever, which was telling) and smart people, especially those in a position of power, were often hard to convince to change their point of view.

"Thank you. Yes. You see, I find that the FBI is staring itself blind on my own status and occupation…"

"You're a criminal," Havers provided dutifully.

"I would prefer the world 'entrepreneur', but technically you are correct," Red said. "However, think of all the infinitely more heinous criminal the task force has brought down with my help. Like that kid, who stole Ivan's name because he was in love—that was one of my better ones." He chuckled.

Havers presented him with a thin smile. "Mr Reddington, I don't refute the fact that you have been instrumental in bring down a number of dangerous criminals and have thereby helped save numerous lives. I am not opposed to the task force. My concern lies with Donald Ressler's performance, his conduct's reflection on the FBI, and the increasing damage both to the Bureau's reputation and in monetary value as a result of this conduct." He tilted his head, eyes cool. "You being here to defend him does not cast him in a more favourable light."

Red stared at him, disbelieving. "You believe he's switched sides…that he's working for _me_."

"Yes."

Red burst into laughter. Had Havers accused Ressler of working for him to his face? He would have loved to see those fireworks. "Surely," he said, grinning, "you must realize how utterly preposterous this accusation is? The man spent five years trying to hunt me down."

Havers nodded. "So Agent Ressler stressed as well. And I can answer you like I answered him: he and the original task force attempted to catch you for five years, yet they never succeeded. He was given detailed information of your whereabouts in Brussels, and nevertheless failed to assassinate you again."

Red snorted. No matter how often he had these kinds of conversations, he didn't think he'd ever get used to people discussing failed attempts on his life with such polite matter-of-factness over coffee. "And you believe that Ressler's inability to catch or kill me is caused, not by the fact that he's a thick idiot, or with me simply outsmarting him and his pathetic coterie, but by my secretly recruiting him into my service?"

"Yes," Havers said seriously. "That is what we believe. He claims to hate you, but he laid his life on the line for you without hesitation."

"Because he was responsible for my well-being as an informant in protective custody," Red said, irritated. "We've been over this before."

"It would have killed him…if you hadn't done your utmost to save him," Havers continued unperturbedly. "A few months later you saved his life again, in Mexico, after he took a bullet for you. You weren't in protective custody then."

Damn Ressler and his honest reports. "You'd rather I left him there to fall into the hands of the local weapons dealers?"

"You could have made sure he wouldn't fall into their hands alive."

Red blinked. "Are you seriously suggesting it would have served me and Ressler better if I'd just shot him through the head instead of treating him—not saving him, just treating his injuries—like a civilized human being? And you're calling me a criminal?"

Havers shrugged, a minimal gesture. The waitress brought Red his coffee. He stirred it, noting, with interest, that he was angry enough that his fingers quivered a little, waited until she had left and then stated, "Donald Ressler doesn't work for me. He works for the FBI."

"Why," Havers asked, "are you so protective of him if he's not your man, as you claim?"

Red allowed his mouth to quirk. Not long ago he had told Yin Lin that Ressler was his man; now he had to convince Havers that he wasn't. "I find a certain poetic justice in having Donald Ressler jump when I say jump." He said truthfully. "I like thinking that I am the one providing him with work—you are totally right, really. He does work for me. As does the rest of the task force. They arrest murderers and criminals because I give them the means to do so. And they're good at it." Havers said nothing, waiting. Red shrugged. He drank some coffee. Excellent brew, as usual, at the Hilton. "Believe it or not, but at heart, I am a creature of habit. Most of my life is spent in borrowed houses, different cities. I see no way to change that. The Post Office has been a constant—apart from Agent Malik's unfortunate demise, of course. Sudden changes in that team make me nervous. When I get nervous, I tend to disappear. And if I disappear…" He took a last sip and put down his cup, "my list disappears with me. Which brings me back to the number of people saved or the millions worth of property damage prevented by Lizzie and Agent Ressler because of me and my list."

"Yes," Havers said. "Liz. What exactly _is_ the nature of your relationship with Agent Keen?"

"She's my agent of choice," Red said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "I take an interest in her career. That's all I'm willing to tell you. Besides, this conversation is about Donald, not Lizzie. Now, here are the facts: Ressler and Keen work together well, and I have grown accustomed to working with them. Ressler doesn't work for me. Believe me, I would be vastly amused if he were, but he isn't. However, if you were to fire him, you would undo six years of the man's life—six years focused on _me_. Whether he was successful in catching me or not, I think you can safely say that Ressler is the only Reddington-specialist the FBI has. If you'd take away his study object you would, quite literally, undo _him_. Can you imagine the despair, the helpless rage, the truly _epic_ temper tantrum he would throw? You've studied him, I take it; you know what he's like." He leaned forward, smiling coldly. "If the FBI kicks Ressler out, I will do my damnedest to snap him up, brainwash him and employ him against you. It shouldn't be difficult; like you already mentioned, I've saved his life twice. He's honourable enough to feel like he owes me, and I can be very persuasive if needs be. Besides, if the FBI would turn their back on him, he'd be so shattered all I'd need to do was collect the pieces of his psyche and glue them back together to my own personal preference."

Now that was actually a rather interesting idea. Red had no doubts that he'd be able to win Ressler over if the FBI abandoned him. A little less mockery, a bit more investment…it'd take time, but it wasn't impossible. He certainly had his uses for an ex-FBI agent and the information he'd soaked up over the years.

Havers, across from him, seemed to have come to the same conclusion; a dimple had formed between his eyebrows.

Reddington picked up his cup and drank the last bit of coffee, then got up and put his hat back on his head. "Think about that, and do whatever comes naturally to you," he said. "It seems that whatever you do, it will work out for me. I wish you a good day." He tipped his hat, first at Havers, then at his body guards, and left the building, smiling into the sunshine.

A/N

Ok, this is the official ending of the story, but I will post an epilogue to tie up some last loose ends and dot some romantic is :) Thanks everybody for reviewing. Haven't left a review yet? Go on, do so! With the epilogue, I've just written 200 pages, so let me know if you appreciated my efforts!


	22. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

That Friday, Assistant Director Cooper received a letter from Nathanial Havers, stating that Agent Donald Ressler was cleared of any charges of treason, and that his weeks off-duty should be considered a formal reprimand for blowing his cover and unnecessarily firing a weapon in public. He would get a note in his personal file, but was to return to duty as soon as possible.

Cooper happily typed up a letter stating the same to Agent Ressler, took it down so he could drop it in the out-mail box, and even went so far as to poke his head into Lizzie's office and say, "I just received word. Ressler's back on duty as of next Monday." Then he frowned. "Tuesday, that is; when the letter reaches him."

Lizzie smiled and sat back in her chair, relieved and happy on Ressler's account. "Finally! Uh, Sir, did you text him as well? Didn't you say he was at his cabin?"

Cooper shot her a calculating glance. "I don't believe I did," he drawled, as far as he was able to drawl in his low-grit sandpaper voice. "But now you mention it; I did address the letter to his home address."

Lizzie pulled up the mask of innocence that worked so well with most men, including Reddington. "I'm heading to my friend Jenny in Mitchellville this weekend. I can take it and drop it off at his cabin, give him the opportunity to hang out his suit."

Cooper saw right through her. He actually gave her an honest to god wink. "Yes," he said, grainy voice quivering with suppressed laughter. "Yes, that might be a good idea."

And so Lizzie texted Ressler, briefly updating him on the status of the mission and casually asking him if he'd mind if she came by to deliver his absolving letter. Ressler sent her a message back, which read: _**I do not mind**_, the address of his cabin, and the question whether she would or would not have had dinner when she came by. As it was almost seven when Lizzie sent her text, she declined dinner but asked if she should bring breakfast.

_**No**__, _Ressler sent back. _**I bought yoghurt. But bring a sweater because the mornings can be nippy.**_

On her way home, Liz picked up take-out, some stir-fried something with chicken, and at home she ate, then showered, put on fresh make-up and clean clothes and packed an overnight bag. She also packed her muesli, because despite Ressler's assurances that breakfast was taken care of, she couldn't believe he'd have thought to buy that.

The cabin wasn't all that long of a drive, about an hour and forty minutes. Maryland unfolded around her as she drove, at first lit by the DC lights, then darker as she left the freeway. The dark, interspersed with dwindling streetlights, felt soothing, and as she sat there alone in her car, the radio playing something soft and 80ies, she realized just how tired she was. The week as Nicky Coxx had been pretty intense, but these last three weeks had simply been killing.

And now it was over. Blofeld, at least, was over. Things were about to return to normal—slow at first, usually, then with a sudden spasm of hectic activity when Red presented another number from his Blacklist.

_At least Ressler will be part of it again. _Again, the thought filled her with relief. The Post Office simply wasn't like it should be without him and his room-filling scowl. _And maybe, just maybe, we might catch a few criminals without him getting beaten up or shot at or me getting snuck upon. That'd be nice._

She arrived at the cabin at 9:30, parked her car next to Ressler's SUV, got her bag and the letter and walked up the steps to the patio. The cabin, lit by a row of garden torches in concrete holders, was pretty nice, not huge but large enough to comfortably house a couple with two kids for a few weeks, she thought. Wood smoke crinkled from the stubby chimney. When had he bought it? Liz wondered. Had he and Audrey bought it when they were engaged? Intending to spend their holidays here, close to the lake, with the children they were planning to have? Or had he bought it after Audrey gave him back his ring so he could have a place that didn't remind him of her?

_Why am I thinking of Audrey?_ Scowling Ressler-like at herself, she pushed all thoughts of dead women aside and knocked on his door.

Lizzie had expected him to be angry. Hell, wasn't he always angry? But when he opened the door he seemed surprisingly relaxed. That might be the clothes, too, though; few people managed to look forbidding in faded jeans, flannel shirts and socks.

"Hey."

"Hey." He opened the door a bit further. "Come in."

She entered and immediately handed him Cooper's letter. He opened it while she took off her coat, read through it while she took off her shoes and made herself comfortable on the couch, and finally folded it back up with a satisfied expression on his face.

"Cleared?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.

He tossed the envelope into the fire in the hearth, dropping the letter itself on the low table in front of the couch. "Yes. I'm expected back at the Post Office this Monday."

"That's fast."

"I don't mind."

"Holiday seems to agree with you, though," she argued. "How've you been?"

He put his hands into his pockets and leaned his back against the hearth, toasting the backs of his legs. "Ever since I got here? Good, actually. Healthy. I've been sleeping a lot. Reading. Hanging out with people and pretend I'm good company. I figured that since there was nothing I could do to improve my situation, I might as well take a bit of a holiday. It was nice." He smiled his lopsided little mocking smile. "I can't wait to get back to the Office."

She noticed he was no longer wearing the finger brace and had simply taped his middle finger to his index finger. "How are all your many broken bones?"

He shrugged. "They're healing. I found out yesterday that chopping wood really isn't a good idea yet, but for the rest I get along fine."

The dreamy, contented look still hadn't left him, and it made her feel a little estranged. Where was his habitual frown? She almost didn't recognize him without it. Apart from that, he was still leaning against the chimney, body languid and relaxed, not tensed to break into a run, fly into a rage, or move around in that nervous way he had.

He noticed her staring at him and raised a querulous eyebrow. "What?"

"Are you drunk?"

He blinked. "No?"

"High?"

"You caught me," he said. "The moment I heard I was not going to be fired over my drug abuse I decided to celebrate by visiting my local dealer and scoring myself a nice fat dose." Ressler did not do sarcasm well—for one thing because it was impossible to hear if he was being sarcastic or not. His words were, though, so she gathered he probably was. "I had a glass of wine," he continued, after a telling pause. "Look, there. And another one with my dinner. Is that allowed, you think? Would you like a glass as well?"

Lizzie said that she would, and he poured her one. It was good wine, a fruity, light red. He filled up his own glass and sat down next to her, movements only a little stiff when he leaned back.

"So you caught Blofeld," he said.

Lizzie snorted. "We didn't catch him at all."

"But you said…"

"We found him. He was dead."

"Dead?!" he exclaimed.

"Yes. Curious little detail: we found 27 needles in his throat." She took a sip of wine and relaxed when annoyance drew the familiar furrows into his forehead. "Yes. Needles. That was what killed him. Someone stuck 27 embroidery needles into his throat, starting on one side and keeping it up until he had choked to death."

"Needles…" Ressler murmured. "Shuo's sister, what was her name again…"

"Xian Lin Yin. Yes, that's what we thought as well. We brought her in for questioning the day before yesterday. Of course she has an alibi. We could form a hockey team with the people swearing she was with them the night Blofeld was killed. It was pathetic, really, the way she led us around. We couldn't touch her."

"But the needles…"

"'Ms Xian, don't you use the needle as your personal symbol?'" Lizzie quoted. "And her reply: "I don't know what you're talking about, dear.' And she was sitting there with these chopsticks in her hair shaped like needles. We had nothing on her. Couldn't prove anything. We had to let her go."

"How did Lin Yin get to him, though? Did she even know Shuo was trying to…" He fell silent, looked up and met Lizzie's eye. She drew up the corners of her mouth and nodded. "Reddington."

"I wouldn't be surprised. I called him when I was in Chicago, to see if he had any leads. He said he was there as well, but only to have dinner with some mysterious lady, not to hunt Blofeld. He must have put Lin Yin on his trail."

"Son of a bitch," Ressler said, but it was almost respectful, and he couldn't help smiling. "Well, the most important thing is that he's dead. What about the drugs shipment? Did you find it?"

Lizzie pulled up her feet beneath her and took another gulp of wine. "Oh, we found it alright. Aram found the ship that was carrying the container, and we traced the ship to Calica. And then the local authorities kicked up an almighty stink about us confiscating that container, and by the time we finally got access, it was empty. So, yes, we found it, but we were too late. Either Red or someone else got to it before us."

"So," Ressler said, slumping a little, "in the end, we didn't do anything. Blofeld is out of the picture, but we didn't bring him in, we just found him. We lost the drug shipment."

"But we saved 50 kids, and Blofeld would still be trafficking drugs and children if we hadn't come along and stopped him. If you hadn't come along and stopped him."

Ressler sneered. "All I did was fail." A hint of his old restlessness surfaced as he began to turn his glass round and round in his fingers.

_For something that is, according to his own words, the only thing left to him, this job certainly makes him miserable,_ Lizzie thought. She was a little surprised he considered himself a failure. He had always seemed to be pretty much convinced of his own capability. _Shall we call it by its name: he can be a pretty arrogant bastard. Then again, he did fuck up, and spectacularly so. _She placed a hand on his arm, stilling his hands.

"According to the Board, it wasn't that bad."

"The Board can go and fuck itself," Ressler shot back. "They were ready to toss me out. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I can rejoin the team and go back to what I'm good at, which is catching criminals, but I'm not quite ready to forgive them for taking me off the case simply because fucking Havers wanted to exercise his authority."

"You did fire your gun without…"

"Yes, I know," he snapped. "But I'd been shot at, I'd been stabbed and cut up and Shuo generally kicked the _snot_ out of me, and the one thing they focus on is something I would never have done if I were in my right mind." He turned towards her, pulling up one leg underneath him. "Maybe it's me, but it blows my _mind_ that Reddington has done more for me and my personal well-being than the fucking FBI ever did, and that they punished me for doing my job. Hell, I chased Red all over the world and tried to gun him down and he saved my life. I did all this _for_ the FBI, and all _they_ ever did was shut me down and tell me I should do better." A pensive look entered his eyes, and the anger bled out of his face. "I wonder if he had anything to do with this."

"Who? Red? With what? You going back to active duty?" She shook her head. "Surely not. Why would he get involved with that?"

"I don't know," Ressler said softly, maybe even wistfully.

Lizzie wondered if anyone had ever stuck up for him before. Ressler had never struck her as someone who ever wanted anyone's help—he certainly hadn't ever accepted hers, if he could manage on his own. _Hey. __**I'**__m Red's special princess, not you!_ She smothered her smile in her glass. "In any case you're back, and it's you who gets to drive me from one crime scene to the other instead of Louanne," she said teasingly.

"Mmm," he said noncommittally, and took a swallow of wine.

Lizzie prodded him. "Why do you hate her so much?"

"I don't hate her," he said, frowning at his glass a little. "I hardly know her."

"The two of you worked together once, right? She told me so."

"Yeah. That was a long time ago, though."

"Then why…?"

"She's a good agent," he said, when Lizzie trailed off. "She's very smart. Liked to emphasize that—all the time. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. She speaks a dozen languages, I can shoot a man through the eye from a hundred yards away. But she was…careful. Liked to wait things out." He watched his wine swirl around in the glass. "It got people killed."

Lizzie had noticed this reactive attitude as well. She had thought it rather refreshing after spending months simply barging into things and hoping they'd work out.

"Wouldn't an active approach have resulted in more bodies?"

"No," Ressler said curtly. "We were…When we worked together, we were hunting down a man who led a certain group. They did bombings. We were in this huge bustling city and I spent most of my time running from one end of the city to the other, verifying leads Louanne got from her moles, following people and hoping to identify and catch the men we were looking for." He smiled wryly. "I don't handle heat very well. It was summer, and temperatures soared to over 100, 105 degrees in the shade in the afternoon. Like I said, I did a lot of running. Climbed a lot of stairs and buildings and skulked around markets while Louanne was talking to people. Anyway, one day I passed out right after one of those chases. Guess it was dehydration, or heat stroke, or something. I was fine one moment, just hot, and the next my head felt like it was caught in a vice, my vision blacked out and I couldn't do anything but sit down, put my head between my knees and hope the faintness would pass. It didn't, but I had collapsed right outside this little herbs and spices shop. The owner's son noticed me sitting there. At first I think he tried to run me off, but when he noticed I literally couldn't move, he and his father got me inside, gave me water and turned a fan on me until I felt better." He gave Lizzie a lopsided smile. "I kind of stood out as a marine. There were more Westerners in that city, but I'm pretty obviously American soldier. By helping me, they knew they were risking the wrath of…of that group we were chasing. They could have just left me there—it's not like I would have died. But they didn't, they took me inside and took care of me." He emptied his glass, reached for the bottle and refilled it, topping Lizzie up when she held out her glass as well. "Anyway, that day, I had verified the location of one of our targets and I wanted to make the arrest. Louanne was adamant we wait. She had reason to believe another target would join the group, and that if we waited, we'd have him as well. The next day they blew up some religious guy's car in the street and the entire herbs and spices store and everyone inside of it was obliterated." He shrugged. "It wasn't Louanne's fault. If I hadn't suffered from heat stroke, I wouldn't even have noticed that store, and it wouldn't have been personal. But if we had raided the place where I'd located our targets and rounded them up that day, they wouldn't have placed that bomb and both that man and his son—not to mention the Imam and ten other people—would still be alive."

"So you blame her for being overly careful."

"No. I blame her for being over-ambitious. We had eight targets. We could have taken six. She wanted them all in one swoop. We still only got the six, and thirteen dead civilians. Caution is fine, but there's a difference between being cautious and simply wanting too much." He took another swallow. "Why are we discussing Louanne Plant?"

"We aren't," Lizzie said. "You are."

"Let's ditch the subject, then."

"Sure." She emptied her glass and placed it on the table, then took his glass out of his hands and put it down as well. "What kind of topic were you thinking about?"

"Oh, I don't know," he drawled, Aaron Stone-like, cocking his head in the same way. "Sex?"

A small flutter started up low in her stomach, but she kept her voice light. "Are you sure you're up to that, Donnie?"

He rolled his eyes. "Keen, for what other reason could you possibly be here? Do you want me to believe you'd drive two hours after what must've been a pretty exhausting week only to give me a letter I'd have gotten anyway, just so you could make me smile?"

She felt a stab of anger at that. "Are you consciously trying to drive me away, or is that just what comes most natural to you?" she demanded in return. Why did the man always have to be so damn _difficult_? "I am here because I'm your friend, because I missed you, and because I'm sick and tired of sleeping alone and because I could use a friend as well. So yes, I came all the way over here just to make you smile, because you do that far too little, but if I'm not wanted, I'll just go and leave so you can be here all by yourself in your little cabin in the middle of nowhere, if that's what you want." She glared at him. "Is that what you want?"

"Uh, no?" Ressler said, somewhat daunted by her outburst.

"Then what?"

"I just told you."

She rewound their conversation. Ah. Yes. Sex. "That is not the reason I'm here. Not the sole reason," she amended, when the corner of his mouth twitched up. _I just showered and shaved my armpits and my legs because that's what I do after a long day, not because I'm hoping you'll go down on me later. _Her cheeks heated up, and Ressler's mouth spread all the way in a real smile.

"You still talk too much, you know," he said, dipped his head and kissed her. He tasted of wine and the faint spicy bitterness of green peppers. Usually, when they kissed, it wasn't slow, or even sweet, just some mechanical part of intercourse—she had never kissed him this way before she'd been Nicky and he'd been Aaron. Now he was almost tender. Even when he pulled her against him it lacked the urgency she associated with…well, whatever it was that they had. Lizzie wasn't sure she wanted him to be that way. She liked him to lose control.

"So," she said, half-jokingly, half-serious, when she pulled back after several seconds and traced the thin stripe of still pink scar tissue on his neck. "do you want me to hurt you?"

Ressler grimaced. "Please don't." He tilted his head, staring down on her from beneath half-lowered eyelids. "You could simply be kind to me?"

_Kind. Not nice, kind. Have I ever not been kind to him? Well, I guess I could not call him a dick for a change…To his face, that is. _"I think I can manage that. Although you aren't the one who's just worked three eighty-hour weeks."

Ressler smirked. "Mm. You're right there. Well, maybe I can show you some kindness in return."

She leaned up and caught his mouth again as he leaned down, and simultaneously slid her hands up beneath his shirt. Ressler stiffened momentarily, but relaxed again when she only stroked her palms up his sides. She kept stroking him that way, just little touches with her palms or the tips of her fingers; moving up and around his shoulders and collar bones, then down, especially carefully, over his ribcage and down to his stomach until her thumbs brushed the slight dip of the Iliac furrow, then up again, over the heavy muscles of his lower back and towards his spine. She just let her hands wander up and down his torso while she was kissing him, and after a while he started mimicking her movements, pulling away from her only to pull off her sweater and remove her bra. He took off his own shirt as well. He still had the sleeve, but all the bright colours had disappeared, leaving only the line art in reds and browns. The bruises on his ribs had faded to a dull green, yellow and black. They covered most of his lower chest and had spread out to his upper left abdomen, and even though she knew they were halfway healed, Lizzie still winced at the sight of them.

"Does this hurt?" she asked, drawing feather-light fingers over his side.

"No," Ressler said, and started kissing her again. Apparently he liked being caressed, because he made a contented sound when she moved her hands across his shoulder blades and up to the back of his neck to knead her fingers into the trapezius muscle, the large muscle running all the way from the middle of his back to the hollow where neck met skull. And again he more or less mirrored her, roaming his hands over her back, sides and hips, up her neck so he could cup her face, thumbs rubbing little circles on her temples. It was a bit strange, with the both of them sitting up on their knees on the couch, still wearing their pants, lips locked and tracing invisible lines over one another's upper bodies, but it was languid and lovely and _nice_, and Lizzie wouldn't have minded keeping it up for another hour. She hadn't had a good backrub in over a year. Only now did she realize how much she'd missed being _loved_, not in the sexual way, but just made to feel good by the soothing touch of another person's hand. Even if they never made it to bed, she decided this was good enough.

But of course Ressler had to spoil it by pulling back a little and stroking gentle fingers along her sternum and then fanning them out over her breasts, first skirting around her nipples and then focusing on them until they swelled and tightened and stood out like berries as he rubbed them with his palms.

Bastard.

Three weeks wasn't a very long time to go without sex. There certainly had been longer periods of abstinence. But after all that had happened, after all these days chasing Blofeld without her daily dosage of Ressler—be it annoying or endearing—it felt like it had been _months_.

"Had enough kindness?" she whispered, when he nuzzled her jaw to kiss her neck and the curve of her shoulder, moving ever so slowly downward to her chest. She felt the curve of his mouth when he smiled against her breast. He did not reply, though, and only suckled one nipple into his mouth. His hands drew down her flanks until they reached the waist of her pants, then up to support her arching spine and back to the front to cup her breasts, and he kissed his way down her abdomen until his ribs wouldn't let him bend any further.

"Urgh," he said, frustrated, snatching back one hand to press it against his chest.

Lizzie, bent backwards over her calves like a circus contortionist, let out a breathless giggle and hauled herself upright. "You must have a bed, here."

"I do."

"Joy and jubilation. Let us go hence, then, Lancelot."

Ressler raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything and made a little 'Ladies first' gesture to the kitchenette. In the back of it was a door, which led to a small hallway with three more doors. One, Lizzie gathered, was the bathroom, another was probably a second bedroom or a store room, and the door he opened held a seven by seven ft. air mattress covered in sheets and blankets. Nothing else.

"Wow," Lizzie said, grinning. "You don't skimp on your furniture, do you?"

"Are you criticizing my furnishing decisions?" Ressler asked.

"No, no, I wouldn't dare. It's charmingly…" she turned around, and he was grinning. Not the little lopsided quirky smile but a real, teasing, wide grin. "…minimalist..." She trailed off.

Jesus Christ.

He was gorgeous.

How had he been able to hide that so _well_?

She guessed that most women first decided they thought a man was attractive before hitting the sack with him, but that had never been the case between the two of them. They'd started fucking as an experimental therapy for mutual misery. Oh, he had a pretty great body, but that had never been the reason she wanted to have sex with him. It wasn't that he was ugly or anything. He sometimes even managed to be fairly attractive. But she'd never even classified him as handsome, apart perhaps from when he had been Aaron, when he was high and the mask-like quality had left his face. And she thought him highly appealing when he was drunk or furious and the emotions he always kept hidden so well flooded to the surface. But she'd never thought him gorgeous, or even capable of being gorgeous, and was struck mute by the fact that he was, just now.

Ressler, unaware of these unflattering thoughts, shrugged. "I had the place redone this summer, and the bed's in the store room. I couldn't move it with my ribs and my hand, so I bought an air mattress. It's pretty comfortable, though. We shouldn't…is something wrong?"

"N-no." _You just need to lose your head, be forced to rest and then get good news more often._

Thankfully, he moved then, his forehead furrowed as he drew up his eyebrows and the shadows or the light changed, and he was himself again, still looking more relaxed than he ever had in the Post Office, but no longer unrecognizably gorgeous.

"No," she said firmly, and started to unbutton his pants. "It's all wonderful."

"Wonderful, huh? Damn, you're in a hurry."

"Nipples, Don. You play with 'em, I get turned on."

That unusually bright grin played over his face again. "No. Really?"

"It's your own fault. I was just being kind to you, and you made it sexual." She wished he would step out of the jeans; he was looking incredibly dorky with those pants pooling around his ankles. She pulled his boxer briefs down as well.

"My god," Ressler said, not moving. "I am so sorry." His cock was jutting out like the rod on a sundial, but he seemed perfectly at ease.

"I'll make you sorry if you don't shuck your pants in the next five seconds," Lizzie growled.

He indicated her own lower body. "You've still got your pants on."

She snorted, wriggled out of them, getting rid of her socks and panties as well. When she looked up, Ressler had done the same, and there were exactly three awkward seconds in which they were both naked and too far away from another; then Ressler took a step towards her, gently took hold of her shoulders and turned her 90 degrees, and gave her a hard shove so she fell on her back onto the bed.

"Hey!"

"Oh, shut up." He let himself drop down next to her, making her bounce up as his weight displaced the air in the mattress. "Hm. Should've let more air into it, I guess."

Lizzie giggled. Bouncy castle sex. That'd be a new one.

"Where were we?" Ressler mused.

"You were going to go down on me."

"I was?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

"Well," he sighed, and slithered down to the foot of the bed, "you were obviously paying more attention than I was, so I'll take your word for it. Spread, Keen, I can't reach you when you keep your legs closed."

Lizzie laughed; the man would be businesslike if it killed him. Her laughter changed into a grin of bliss and then a gasp of pleasure when he pushed his tongue inside of her. God, he was good at this, she couldn't get over how great he was at this, and when he stroked two fingers inside of her just as he trilled the very tip of his tongue against her clit she quite unexpectedly tipped over the edge, not thirty seconds after he'd started.

Ressler pulled back, fingers still inside of her, and shot her a disbelieving look. "Already?"

"Uhhhh…Long week."

He chuckled. "Right, you didn't have sex on your mind at all when you came here, did you?" He moved his fingers, making her twitch. "I can go on if you like?"

"No." she cupped his jaws with both hands, tugged gently to pull him up and over her. "Come on. Are you still…?"

"I can usually keep it up for longer than a minute, thank you very much," he groused, making her laugh again, and then sigh as he slid into her. But that position hurt his ribs so he rolled over, pulling her along until she straddled him, and again it was slow and easy…until Lizzie dipped her head and gently nibbled the scar on his throat. His hips jerked; she could literally feel him filling out further inside of her, and smiled against his skin when his head dropped back, baring more of his throat.

_Oh, you DO like it when I do this, don't you? _

Men's throats were such strange places, with the very soft, supple skin of their lower necks from the dip between their collarbones up, and the downy hair that became stubble just above the larynx. He had shaved that morning, she thought, but nevertheless his skin was prickly beneath her tongue and lips. She decided she liked the feel of stubbly skin over cartilage, and she liked the way Ressler reacted when she drew her teeth over the muscle on the side of his neck. It was kind of hard to keep up a steady rhythm with her face tucked against his neck, but he managed to set one himself, thrusting up with increasing urgency the deeper she pressed her teeth into his flesh.

"Don't…leave marks," he gasped.

"Too late," she whispered back. "Cooper's gonna think you've been hit with a ping pong ball gun when you get back at the office. Bruises all over your neck."

"Bitch," he moaned, and inhaled sharply when she placed her hand just below his throat and squeezed her spread fingers. She didn't actually cut off his airflow, or maybe just a little, but he made no move to stop her.

"Are you almost there, Donnie?" she murmured. "I can feel you getting harder and harder, and you must be really, really close…Do you like it when I do this? Tighter? Yeah? Like this? Or like this?"

"Oh please shut—" Ressler gasped, and she tightened both hands around his throat and he came with a literally strangled oath.

Lizzie released him the moment he stopped pulsing inside of her, pulled away and snuggled up against him, very pleased with herself. Grabbing hold of the bed sheet, she tugged at it until it covered the both of them, or at least partly so.

Ressler breathed out slowly. He cleared his throat. "Asphyxiation?" he said pleasantly.

"Whatever floats your boat, Don. I'm game."

"I'm not even sure I know what kind of boat I'm sailing in."

"May be a raft," she teased.

She could feel his eyes on her head, but didn't look up, content to stay as she was. "Sometimes," he said softly, "I'm afraid you're going to sink me."

Liz shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. She drew feather-light circles on his chest. "I will never hurt you more than you want me to."

"How will you know? I always let you do what you…" He rubbed his forehead.

"Mmmm. And did I ever cross any lines you didn't want me to cross?"

Ressler snorted. "Maybe the first time you came to my house?"

"The first time I entered your house we'd been out, getting wasted."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, that was a mistake as well." He sighed, stroked her shoulder. "Sorry, that came out wrong. And that was my fault, anyway. I'm just…" he scoffed again. "I think I'm pretty much fucked up, and being with you makes it worse. Or brings it closer to the surface. And you might say you don't mind, but you don't strike me as some kind of leather-clad dominatrix, and I kind of don't want to see you turn into one."

Lizzie snickered. "Dear god, Don, just because you get turned on when I take control doesn't mean you need to invest in a gimp suit and hooks on the ceiling."

"I wasn't planning to," Ressler said, sounding just a little bit alarmed.

Lizzie grinned against his chest and caressed the flat plane of his stomach. "Do you know what I like most about men's bodies?" she said, changing the subject.

"Let me guess," Ressler drawled meaningfully, and she swatted at him.

"Noo! Not that." She put her finger just below his navel and drew it down along the thin line of blond hairs there until she touched the sheet he'd pulled up. "This."

Ressler's face was impassive. "That."

"Yes. I think it's really sexy."

"I cultivate my body to resemble an ancient Greek god statue and you're enamoured of my _happy trail_?"

"Eh, Greek god statues are vastly overrated."

"No happy trail," Ressler understood. His belly was quivering with suppressed laughter.

"Exactly."

"Hard to do in marble."

"Which is why I don't date marble statues."

"Wise choice. They may be pretty but they're terribly boring."

"Ah. You have experience dating marble statues?"

"No. Strangely enough I was always attracted to the real thing."

"Odd."

"Mmm."

They lay quiet for a while. Lizzie dozed a little, lulled by the warmth of the body she was lying against, the weight of his arm draped over her shoulders and the steady beat of his heart. She blinked sleepily when Ressler spoke again.

"Are you staying over for the weekend? You run, don't you? There's this beautiful track through the woods to the lake. You'd like it."

"I'd like to stay over." She swallowed a yawn. "Won't running hurt your ribs?"

"Not if I time my painkillers well."

"Mm. You always get up early, don't you? I don't want to go running at six o' clock."

"At six, it's still dark," Ressler said. "You'd break your legs. Besides, I don't get up that early either. We could go running at ten. Or," he proposed, when she didn't say anything, "we could simply walk to the lake at eleven."

Liz laughed. "That sounds lovely."

"Right then," Ressler said, sounding pleased.

Outside, trees creaked in the gentle breeze. The garden torches burned out one by one. Lizzie listened to the unfamiliar noises and the beat beneath her cheek, utterly relaxed and wholly content. Undoubtedly things would blow up soon enough, but for the moment she felt happy.

She had fallen asleep before Ressler gently disentangled from her to make sure the fire in the hearth was out and wouldn't burn down the cabin around them.

Ressler and Lizzie both drove back in their own cars that Sunday afternoon. The weekend had been pretty much of a success, as Ressler still felt remarkably sane and Lizzie hadn't called him a dick even once. Having sex three times a day had also contributed to making them feel positive about the shared stay at the cabin, and decide that, circumstances permitting, it might be repeated sometime in the future.

When Ressler approached his apartment he noticed something that made him park his SUV across the street instead of in front of his house. He got out of his car and stood staring at it for a long moment, a warm, hopeful feeling rising in his chest.

The Harley was parked in his front yard. It had been repaired, all the scratches removed and painted over; it looked like new. On the gas tank, a small Chinese or Japanese symbol stood out in black-lined silver. It was the same symbol that was now fading on his back, on his kidney.

_Stone._

A bright white envelope was folded between the break and the gas on the right hand steer. Ressler opened it and read the handwritten note that was inside. It somehow disturbed him that he recognized the handwriting.

_**As the Aaron Stone character can't be used anymore, it seems only fair you inherit his possessions, you being his closest relative. Alternatively, see it as a thank you note from a father reunited with his daughter. As you know, she was one of the children you liberated from the container, although you will not find her name on the list. According to Harold, this has already cleared with Evidence. You may accept it without fear of being accused of taking bribes.**_

_**R**_

Ressler smiled. He stroked the gleaming gas tank. Then he took his duffle bag out of his car, found the keys to the Harley on the mat inside, used them to open the bike's trunk where he found the helmet, put it on and swung himself into the saddle.

One more hour of daylight left. More than enough to drive into the sunset.

_**THE END**_

_A/N_

_The following bit is just a tiny little extra, because you all had to wait for so long for this last chapter. Part of me would like to write a whole story about this. Part of me is convinced I shouldn't. Anyway. Red is a dick._

**Bonus**

"Thomas Ackerson," Red said, "is Milo Yavonavic's best friend, and therefore the best person to approach to get close to Milo. Unfortunately…he's a bit of a rogue. He likes parties, pretty things."

_Here we go again,_ Lizzie thought.

"His self-esteem rises with each new conquest. He brags about his amorous adventures and sees them as a necessary part of his personal development."

_Great. So it's not enough to flirt with him for an evening. Nooo, it has to be a chase. God, I hate men._

"Ackerson is drawn to beauty, physical beauty," Red continued, "but in order to keep him, his paramour must keep his mind engaged. He has many different interests, so you'd be required to read up on those and be able to keep up conversation."

Lizzie sighed. This already sounded like a horrible mission.

"He prefers blondes," Reddington said.

_Guess I'll be wearing a wig, then._

"And men."

Ressler, who'd been listening with a somewhat distant look on his face, sat up with a jolt as Red addressed him with those last two words.

"What?"

"Thomas is gay."

"No," Ressler said.

"We need you to seduce Ackerson and…"

"No."

"Yavonavic is going to strike within the next ten days, Donald. You can't afford to…"

"No."

"It wouldn't come to actual sex," Red promised. "At least, I don't think so—not if you got the information out of him before he got tired of chasing you…"

Ressler glared at him. A fine flush bloomed on his cheekbones. "I said no," he said. "I'm not gonna do that. I can't."

"Donald, surely you don't value your masculinity over the lives of thousands of people?"

The flush became deeper. "Find someone else."

Lizzie studied him with interest. "If you wouldn't have to sleep with him," she started. "Just seduce him..."

The glare transferred from Reddington to her. "Liz, I have enough trouble asking a woman for her phone number. Do you really think I'd be anywhere _near_ believable pretending I'm all over a man? Much less keep him interested? I'm not interesting—not unless he likes to talk about motor cycles and how to assemble guns! I can't fake I am, and I can't fake I'm into guys! Find someone else."

Reddington's chin trembled a couple of times before he burst out into laughter. "But it would be so _amusing_!" he giggled. "And I'd dress you in such wonderful clothes! You'd get to wear silk shirts and designer jeans."

"No," Ressler said. "Just…no. Do it yourself. If Ackerson's that into multi-tasking, broadly-interested, worldly types, he'd _adore_ you."

"Well," Red said, smirking, "That was the original plan, of course. I'd only need you to lure him towards me."

"In a silk shirt and designer jeans," Ressler sighed. "I guess I'd be up to that." He glowered at Red. "That was the original plan?"

"Of course. I wouldn't let you attempt to seduce a man, Donald. I like to have bigger chances of success. Although." He studied him with a calculating look on his face that made Ressler instinctively lean back in his chair. "Maybe I should leave off the shirt. You'd make a much better lure in just jeans."

"No."

"You should display that body of yours; it's definitely your most powerful attribute and it's totally wasted in a suit."

"No."

"I could lead you around on a leash."

"No."

"You could wear one of those spiky collars."

"No!"

"Did I mention it's a masked ball?"

Ressler sighed. "No," he said tiredly. He got up, picked up a yellow stack of notepaper, wrote down the word 'no' and stuck the note to the back of his chair. "I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Let me know where I need to be." And he left.

"Is it a masked ball?" Lizzie asked, curious.

"Heaven's no." Red grinned. "Just an evening out at the club."

"Is he even gay? Ackerson?"

"Ackerson?" He laughed. "Not really. I just couldn't resist. Did you see his _face_?"


End file.
